- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
As the farcical sight of Thomas Kristensen, gloved up and awaiting an ill-fitting goalkeepers jersey, perfumed the late-game air of what had been a pedestrian contest, chaos was brewing.
The penalty, tucked away by Sergio Cirio to give Adelaide all three points, provided a fizzing catalyst that would, allegedly, initiate an explosive confrontation in the tunnel after the final whistle.
Television images, the camera flying around amid the post-match maelstrom of verbal abuse and frenzied cheering, caught the sight of an Adelaide assistant coach, Jacobo Ramallo, lying prone and in need of assistance at the mouth of the tunnel. Reports leaked out in the next hour or so that Ramallo had allegedly been assaulted by a Brisbane assistant, Ross Aloisi.
Now, in the heat – used in every sense of the word – of the moment, it was extremely difficult to determine what had actually happened.
Enough furious focus was already on the lack of poise shown by referee Stephen Lucas, who rightly awarded Brisbane goalkeeper Michael Theo a red card, but then wrongly awarded Adelaide a penalty.
Dylan McGowan had been bear-hugging Theo, provoking his violent response, but it is scarcely believable that the referee would have seen Theo’s jutted elbow and not McGowan’s grappling occurring a half-second before.
A free-kick should have been awarded to a ten-man Brisbane. McGowan even tweeted out an admission after the game, that he was trying – and succeeding – to commit a professional foul to stop Theo from starting a counter-attack.
Lucas lost sight of the order of offences, and in what corresponding order they should have been punished, and his actions were as ham-fisted and clumsy as they were consequential.
It was enough to make any Brisbane fan slip horribly into crimson wrath. It isn’t outside the realm of possibility that a punch was thrown in the aftermath.
So when Adelaide announced they weren’t going to lodge a complaint, it applied another obscuring veil over the whole incident; a member of their staff had been reportedly donkey punched in the spine, and yet they weren’t willing to pursue the full gamut of recompense? How odd.
A mad conspiracy theorist, hatted in foil and tugging wild-eyed on their whiskers, might attribute Adelaide’s decision not to more actively pursue the perpetrator to the rumours they would very much like to have John Aloisi – and possibly his brother too – as the men in charge of their club in the near future.
An FFA investigation is underway, incorporating both ‘punch-gate’ and the incident that saw Craig Moore, the Brisbane Director of Football, spew out a tirade of insults at referee Lucas, as he left the field. Brisbane have already announced they will accept the punishment set to be handed down to Moore.
As for Aloisi, on Monday the Roar’s managing director Mark Kingsman made statements denying Aloisi was involved in any post-match fracas, and that they would contest any ruling on the incident by the FFA they considered too harsh.
“I’ve spoken to Ross and he’s adamant he didn’t punch him (Ramallo) and I’ve got no reason not to believe Ross,” Kingsman said.
Right, now, how to make sense of this?
The FFA’s findings will be released later this week, but according to the Courier Mail, only submissions from Brisbane Roar, from a Coopers Stadium security guard and from the match commissioner, Barry Panella, will be considered by the investigation. Either the Roar are confident in Aloisi’s innocence, or in a lack of evidence present to implicate him beyond doubt.
The television image shows John Aloisi staring directly at the incident from the pitch sideline, seemingly moments after it happened. Someone did something to Ramallo to leave him sprawled on the tunnel floor – though not, as it was revealed, enough to leave lingering injuries.
Curiously, and somewhat in spite of their own position, the Courier Mail is also reporting the Roar will claim Ramallo “mouthed personal insults about Aloisi’s family” in the lead-up to the incident.
Perhaps a minor skirmish was had, but the seriousness of the trauma inflicted was highly exaggerated by Ramallo? Who knows?
Regardless, in the midst of this chaotic fog, it’s still clear that a lack of grace was had all round, and that the parties – from Aloisi to Moore, to Ramallo, even to Lucas – will not escape from this with their reputations as intact as they were before.
The Roar are still gunning for a home finals tie, but now sit in fourth, three points behind Melbourne City. They have played all their fixtures against the Citizens this season, and face the Victory next, without Theo.
As this mess is sorted out, one hopes those in need of punishment will get it, just as those deserving of exoneration will have it duly awarded.