So UEFA have thrown the book at Eduardo. To be precise, they have thrown Article 10, section 1, point c of the UEFA Disciplinary Guide at him. He has been given:
“suspension for two competition matches or for a specified period for acting with the obvious intent to cause any match official to make an incorrect decision or supporting his error of judgement and thereby causing him to make an incorrect decision.”
Introduced in 2006 the rule has only ever used in incidents involving the Scottish FA (twice – this is the second time). One is put strongly in mind of the ancient Scottish folksong, still sung throughout the land today: “SFA: Wank wank wank, SFA: Wank wank wank!”
There are several wonderful things about this most vague of rules.
As Arsene has pointed out it relies on the well-established principle of mens rea, something it is exceptionally tricky to establish simply by scrutinising the facial expression of the accused as they tumble floorwards, though you can certainly have a great argument in a pub about it. Did the culprit writhe or simply collapse, for example?
The other great thing about it is that there isn’t any kind of time-based cut-off. The law came into force in 2006, so every time a player has attempted to deceive the referee and has gone unpunished since 2006 could now be met with a two match ban. These punishments are retrospective, and anything since the law was passed is fair game.
Needless to say, this could pose quite a problem to serial cheats.
Take Ronaldo. Since 2006, Cristiano Ronaldo has appeared in 37 Champions League matches, 14 Euro 2008 qualifiers and 4 Euro 2008 games. That’s 55 appearances under Uefa jurisdiction, without even including friendlies. And it’s all on tape for Uefa’s disciplinary panel to have a good look at just as soon as they’ve finished harassing Eduardo.
Being (very) charitable I would say that having watched Ronaldo regularly he probably successfully deceives the referee – mostly through diving – at least once every two games he plays. I’m not joking – the regularity of his diving may well be unprecedented in world football. They’re not all high-profile incidents – he has won countless long-forgotten free-kicks in midfield by intentionally tripping himself up and hitting the deck. Mostly, he goes unpunished, though his collection of dive-earned yellow cards wouldn’t play in his favour. And it doesn’t matter if these dives won penalties or not.
As for establishing mens rea, the prosecution should be able to mount a pretty serviceable character assassination based on footage of the young man winking at his bench after cunningly getting his club-mate sent off in 2004.
At that rate, Uefa would have at least 27 incidents involving Ronaldo to look into, with the possibility of 2 game bans for each of them.
Hello 54 match ban! Goodbye mountains of TV dollars!
It can’t be one rule for Eduardo and another for everyone else. If Uefa are serious, then they’d better get busy with the video archive of Drogba, Gerrard, Rooney and Torres over the last 3 years.
They say they are on a mission to stamp diving out of the game altogether. Go on then.
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