Up For Grabs Now

So the news this evening is that Chelsea have been hit with an almost incredibly funny ban on transfers until 2011, for tapping up Gael Kakuta. The parallels with the Eduardo diving story are interesting. In both cases, the guilty party has been handed an unprecedented and apparently disproportionate punishment for an offence widespread throughout the game. Eduardo was banned for 2 European matches for taking a dive against Celtic a couple of weeks ago. Many fans objected to this, as proven by the lively discussion on Grabs’ blog, on the grounds that he was being made an example of.

The sting of this for Gooners, fairly mild at the worst of times (most agreed it looked like a dive, and few would complain that we’ll really miss him that much in a Champions League group that makes the Blue Square Premier look like La Liga), has now been almost totally eased by the decision passed on Chelsea, who as it stands may not sign anyone for two transfer windows, being the new year slot this season and next summer. For a club of their player turnover and incompetence with raising theier own young talent this is seriously disruptive, and more to the point hits them nowhere near their wallet. Abramovich could happily chin almost any fine thrown at him, but this punishment affects (as it ought, perhaps) their ability to function as a club.

Chelsea fans will think the ban outrageously harsh. They will say the same things we did a few days ago – that everyone taps up players, and if they’re going to be punished why not all the others. They will say they have been made an example of. They have been, and quite right too. These rules exist to prevent lecherous wealthy clubs from luring promising youngsters to break their contracts. Much as I’m on the side of Arsenal, a rich club, I also mostly like to think of myself as not being a total dickhead, and so in principle I totally support the little clubs. Football is biased enough towards the wealthy without this sort of thing too. Given that it tends to concern the livelihoods of young, vulnerable players, not to mention often the financial security of the smaller clubs, tapping up should be fought if at all possible.

The big clubs will always find ways to exert their extra strength. This does not mean FIFA ought not try as hard as it can to regulate against it. Similarly, players will always find ways to deceive the referee – this too does not mean the authorities ought not do whatever they can to fight it. I for one have long advocated using a fourth official, as in rugby, for contentious decisions. It rarely takes more than thirty seconds or a minute. Similarly, no player bar the captain should be allowed to address the referee, be it applauding a decision or contesting a penalty. If a few players got booked for this sort of behaviour its incidence would plummet. Players, like clubs, do whatever they can get away with. On the whole Gooners I know are on the side of fair play and non-twattishness, leaving that to the likes of United and Bolton.  We cannot wish it with one hand and wish it away with the other. We cannot bemoan UEFA’s inaction and then bemoan its actions too, however much of a knobber Platini might be.

After Eduardo, harsh as it seemed at the time, players will think twice about taking a tumble. After Chelsea, clubs will think twice about tapping a player up. No fan can disagree with these. It’s unfortunate that the first one happened to an Arsenal player, but in the context of Chelsea’s punishment it seems that, if it is the season of example-making, we have escaped rather lightly.

Now, all together now – let’s all laugh at Chelsea. 

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.

Eboo-gate has, I think, rumbled on long enough. Enough mud has been slung across these forums and it has again shown the many fractures and rifts which exist across the Arsenal fan-base, and how quickly these come apart. On these, I share many of the excellent thoughts of Goonerholic. Enforcing labels for groups of fans who may be particularly pro-Arsene or otherwise smacks of a perverse tribalism which can only harm the club as a whole.

And you know who’s really to blame for all this? T*ttenham. No, they didn’t infiltrate the stadium to cause tension, nor (believe it or not) are they paying Eboue on an each-time-he-plays-a-delightful-through-ball-for-the-opposition-midfield basis. No, they caused this whole sorry affair by being really really shit for such a long time. If they had even a scrap of quality you’d soon see the Gooners closing ranks, but as they have been crap for such a long time now, we lack a common foe and those Gooners with aggression to vent are increasingly turning on their own.

Unlike Grabber (see yesterday’s post), I still feel the booing was destructive and pointless. I’m not really interested in arguments about whether your season ticket does or does not entitle you to a few throaty grumbles over the season. The main point for me is that the booing doesn’t help the team, of which Eboue is a part, and so it’s probably a bad plan. It pisses the team off, and when you’re having a difficult season it’s made a whole lot more difficult if there is significant beef between the crowd and the team.

Right. Enough on that, I’m drawing a line under it (so to speak).

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Champions’ League Wednesday ahoy! Despite being one of the most universally poorly punctuated leagues in the world – the League belongs to the many Champions from around Europe, so surely UEFA should enforce the apostrophe with greater rigour – we have generously agreed to contest the competition regardless. Calling it the “Champions League” is confusing for all of us and sounds suspiciously like these “Champions” are a corporate sponsor a la “Barclays Premiership”. Maybe they should call it the “League of Champions” or something to clear up the whole sorry saga.

Undaunted by the governing body’s basic grammatical failings, Arsene’s boys have marched to the top of the prestigious Group G and have 2 points on Porto going into the clash tomorrow. Easy-peasy you cry, we duffed them at the Emirates and we’ll jolly well duff them on their own patch. Hurrah! But what’s this? Arsene says he isn’t going to try because he doesn’t give a hoot if we’re first or second:

It makes a difference to win the group because it makes you feel you have done your job better than to finish second. Does it really make a difference in the outcome of the last 16 tie? I do not know. Maybe there is an advantage to play the second game at home, but if you look at all the groups, there is not a big difference between some teams finishing first or second.

Now, is this really true? Firstly, yes there definitely certainly undoubtedly is an advantage in playing the second leg at home. We’ve seen it time and again. Secondly, if we finish top we are likely to be playing someone like Panathanaikos, Sporting, possibly Atletico, Villareal, one of Bayern or Lyon and Real Madrid. If we unleash the Song/Eboue strikeforce and lose to Porto then we’d be more likely to come up against teams of the calibre of Roma, Inter, Barcelona, Juventus and (again) one of Bayern or Lyon.

So on balance, topping the group would surely be an excellent idea. No points for originality, I’ll admit, but it needs to be said.

Other news: Ade says we need more goals and less pretty fannying about. Of course, more goals sounds like an excellent plan to me, though I am partial to a bit of Goonerish fannying about now and again. I also think this really hasn’t been our problem this year. Very rarely have we played a team off the park but not managed to make our chances count, certainly not as much as we used to, say, last season. Against City, for example, the problem wasn’t that our dashing cut and weave brand of Wengerball was cruelly thwarted by our own penalty-box vanity, it was more that we were utterly utterly mince and got shat on by the better team.

Transfer whisper: I note that the repulsive reptile that is the Daily Mail has linked the similarly tough tackling and reptilian Esteban Cambiasso with a 17 million euro move to Man City. My ingenious plan is that he should reject their vulgar overtures and instead sign for us! Cambiasso is an excellent player and the thought of him sitting selflessly in our midfield egging Captain Cesc on to more box-busting forward runs makes me salivate openly. Like the cheeky bloke who ran that headline yesterday about how Arsenal were going to sign Michael Owen I have no grounds whatever for supposing that Arsene is in any way interested. But at least we’ve got hope.

Grabs