Ed-Gate

Well, what a kafuffle Eduardo has caused this week. According to his manager, he was only avoiding getting another injury like the one he received from Martin Taylor eighteen months ago – a blow from which he has only just recovered. According to Celtic fans and players – most notably the passionate Scott Brown – it was a despicable attempt to secure his team a penalty from which, should it be scored, Arsenal would all but secured their passage into the first round proper of the Champions League.

So what does a local league referee think to it? Well, the first thing I must say is that it is controversies like this that cause most of my headaches on a Sunday morning. Players imitating, or worse still, complaining that other players are imitating, what they have seen on the television is one of my biggest problems. Be it kids running up to you and complaining about a decision a la John Terry, diving like Ronaldo or jumping into someone’s back like Shaun Derry did to the diminutive Robinho in Thursdays Carling Cup tie often disrupts games, and if I then give a decision I get accused of having watched too much TV!? Typical!

Back to the case in point, and “Ed-gate”. I was watching the game on ITV, and on first viewing it certainly seemed that the clumsy Boruc had clattered into the Croat and given away his team’s chances of playing in the elite this year. However, as soon as you saw the impassioned protests of Boruc, Brown and co. then you knew something was up. As soon as you saw the first replay, you could see Boruc moving his legs and arms out of the way and minimal, if any contact being made.

In my opinion, there was contact, but Eduardo was already on his way down, anticipating the full contact making the referee’s decision very easy. However, the cheeky little smile on his face as he looked up at the camera shows a sinister side to an otherwise affable-appearing guy. Then for his manager to come up with a string of excuses – whilst expected – does nothing for either the striker or the club.

However, I can see Wengers and Arsenal’s arguments. A) Boruc did clip Eduardo, and had the striker not taken evasive action would have been wiped out by the bug Pole. B) Eduardo has just recovered from a horrific injury and any way of avoiding unnecessary contact is expected and C) Other teams do it, and get away with it, so why should they not try it? Another argument I could make is that had this happened in the same tie, away at a Russian team or even at home to a non-British team – would anyone care?

Those are the arguments for and against the “dive” – I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether or not it was a dive or not!!!

Finally, I am deeply unhappy at the decision by UEFA to retrospectively impose a 2 match ban on the striker. Whilst justice should be done, obviously, there are a number of points that concern me with this. A) Are they now going to look back at every incident of diving over the last few years and retrospectively ban players? (If so, Real won’t se much return on their £80m investment this season!) B) Now this decision has been taken, they have to be consistent with ALL proven incidents of diving in the future and C) Again, I agree with Arsene. If this is worthy of a retrospective ban, will all aspects of “trying to deceive the referee” be dealt with equally. By this I mean incidents such as shirt pulling, holding and tripping – as well as saying the ball didn’t strike you as it clearly went out of play for a corner for the opposition!

Hope you have enjoyed reading, please comment!