Following Sergio Agüero’s … enthusiastic … challenge upon
David Luiz’s hindquarters during this weekend’s FA Cup Semi-Final, the issue of
crude tackles has once again been thrust into football’s spotlight.
Agüero, who
scored a decisive goal in City’s 2-0 triumph, appeared to drop-kick the
Chelsea centre-back in the posterior at about the 82-minute mark and escaped
without serious censure from referee Chris Foy.
The incident – which you can view below – appears to show the Argentine
beaten for a ball by Luiz, who goes to ground.
Agüero’s response is to go to ground himself, cleats first and no matter
whose butt was lay in his way. The
result: a free kick to the Blues.
Should a player commit a poor foul, it is FA policy –
barring “special circumstances” – to avoid further punishing players for such
infractions. It is their position that
retrospective action would undermine a referee’s control of the game. This posture assumes of course that the
referee had control (and adequate sight-lines) in the first place.
It’s time for that rule to change. To avoid serious injuries as a result of
unduly rough play, the FA needs to seriously consider retrospective
punishment. That Agüero – and
Callum McManaman – escaped serious punishment for poorly executed or
deliberate feet-first contact is galling and it’s fortunate that their victims
weren’t more seriously injured.
It is a paramount duty of Football Associations to ensure
player safety. In order to do so, perhaps
inspiration can come from the Australian Football League. In the late 1980s, this competition
instituted a “trial-by-video” system to eliminate rampant behind the play
violence and to compensate for incidents the officiating umpires might have
missed. In so doing injuries as a result
of player violence by dint of negligence or vindictiveness has been reduced
markedly.
In the AFL, each case is
judged according to a penal matrix which assigns a points value to the
incident’s intent (which can be graded intentional, reckless, negligent or
accidental), impact (deemed severe, high, medium, low, negligible) and point of
contact (was it to the head, groin or body?).
Players who score highly – for example a deliberate punch to the face of
an opponent – are in line to receive far harsher sanctions than someone who
negligently knees a player to the ribs.
Penalties are then meted out according to a similar system, with good or
bad behavior bonds and early guilty pleas serving as multipliers.
Precedents are inadmissible evidence, meaning every player
receives the same judgment. More
importantly, each player are charged with protecting player safety and made
aware this duty of care is expected of them.
For football, the point of contact might be adapted to assess how high
up the “target” player’s leg impact occurs.
With such a system, Agüero’s challenge might be assessed as
reckless, medium and to the upper leg, thus earning a moderately severe ban.
Football Associations across the globe must do more to
ensure player safety and avoid cases like Ben
Collett, Aaron Ramsey and Eduardo.
This is one way to empower players in taking charge of their own
on-field security. There has been one
incident too many.
