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Newcastle Jets have thrown their support behind coach Branko Culina after he was issued with a breach notice by the Football Federation Australia (FFA).
Culina has been censured following comments he made after the Jets’ 1-0 A-League loss to Wellington at EnergyAustralia Stadium on Sunday.
The FFA took issue with the former Sydney FC coach after he said “we’re only a (potential) finals team because the other teams around us are shit”, in response to a question about his side’s finals aspirations.
He was subsequently served with the notice alleging he breached a clause of the national code of conduct which says a coach must not make disparaging public remarks about any team, player or team official.
“Obviously it is not ideal for us but we will have to deal with it, we have until the close of business (on Wednesday) to make a submission and we will take it from there,” Jets chief executive John Tsatsimas told AAP.
“Branko is a passionate man and wears his heart on his sleeve. I can’t really say too much before we make the submission, but we will give him our full backing.”
Tsatsimas also said there were some concerns about the temperature at Sunday’s game with the mercury nudging 42 degrees and players from both sides losing up to three kilograms in weight during the 90 minutes.
“There are certain barometers that are used by the FFA and we rely on that with other people more qualified than me to decide on things like the temperature.
“It was certainly a concern as you don’t like to see players play with such strain on their body and in such distress.
“However, those conditions were out of the ordinary but is maybe something all parties can look at tweaking.”
The FFA said the issue of player safety is of paramount importance and decisions about whether games should go ahead are taken by using the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WGBT) method and in consultation with doctors from both teams.
The WGBT is a composite temperature used to estimate the effect of temperature, humidity, wind speed and solar radiation on humans to determine appropriate exposure levels to high temperatures.
“There is a high risk of injury when the WGBT temperature is 28 degrees or greater and it is the job of the home club to assess the WGBT,” said FFA spokesman Rod Allen.
“Those readings are not just air temperature, the time of day and the cloud cover are all part of that reading.
“All of that was done on Sunday before the game.”
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