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There has been some recent discussion in the media on this matter surrounding the suspension by the FFA of Newcastle’s D’Apuzzo.
For those who do not know the background, during the second half of the Melbourne Victory vs Newcastle Jets match on Friday night, D’Apuzzo stuck out his arm and effectively stopped a very good cross from reaching the shiny crown of Melbourne’s Brazilian import, Ney Fabiano, who most likely would have nodded in from point blank range.
The referee(s) did not spot the infringement, otherwise it would have been a certain penalty and a likely card.
This is where things get interesting and slightly controversial, and to give a full account of what is really going on here, we have to step back yet again almost one full year.
Early last season all would recall an incident involving the Jets’ Joel Griffiths in which he apparently struck the nether regions of a linesman while sitting on the ground disputing a particular decision.
After some discussion with the linesman concerned, the central referee presented Griffiths with a yellow card – quite a bewildering decision under the circumstances.
When the FFA reviewed the details of this unsavoury incident afterwards, it determined that its hands were tied because the referee had dealt with the matter on the field, notwithstanding that in hindsight, the referee’s actions were probably insufficient.
As a consequence, the FFA ushered in a new regime in dealing with such matters “post match”, and has expressly given itself greater flexibility to ensure that no such acts fall through the cracks unpunished.
One year on, and the FFA was able to test this new regime following the round three matches on the weekend in no less than three separate incidents.
However, it is the D’Apuzzo matter that has generated the greatest discussion with most expert commentators concluding that the suspension of D’Apuzzo for one round goes beyond the bounds of what the FFA was intending with its new regime of post match reviews.
Victory captain Kevin Muscat, who was quite close to the incident last Friday, is quoted as saying: “We’ve taken a lot of onus away from the referee’s decision on the day. I’m a bit baffled how we can go back and suspend someone for the next game for that.”
Quite a few experts have expressed similar sentiments in the last 24 hours.
But what exactly is the concern here?
The feeling appears to be that it’s ok to review the actions of the kind that involved Griffiths last season, or the Djulbic spitting incident last round, but not to review a ref’s decision during the actual game.
So, violent and unappealing acts are ok to review, but leave everything else to the ref on game day.
Such an approach might have intuitive appeal except for the following points:
1. Many may not be aware that it is actually possible for whole games to be replayed on account of certain types of refereeing errors. By that standard alone, I can’t see how it could be argued that a red cardable handball incident should be excused from post-match reviews as have been established by the FFA.
2. The argument to excuse such incidents from the prerogative of the post match review committee, appears to be based more on cultural norms. That is, those of the game elsewhere in the World as opposed to the norms applied to Australian sports.
3. Many appear to be confusing the use of instantaneous video technology to assist refereeing as compared to post match reviews which have a completely different intent to refereeing a game in real time.
If the intent is to catch those incidents that may have incurred a red card should the incident have been spotted, or would have incurred a red card if the referee was doing his job properly, then I can’t see how the D’Apuzzo incident can be excused from any such scrutiny.
If it means that players are less likely to handle the ball at critical times of a game in the hope that they might get away with it, I can’t see the harm.
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