Why it’s time for the FA to make a stance although the Dutch have ulterior motives…

One has to commend the Dutch FA for dropping Nigel De Jong from the squad for their up and coming Euro 2012 qualifiers. It’s very rare for an international manager to come out and openly criticise one of his players for breaking the leg of an opponent but all credit to him for doing that. Many football writers and fans are of the opinion that tackling in modern day football has gone over the top and that it’s now worse than it’s ever been before. I disagree, players could get away with so much more in the 60s, 70s and 80s – I wasn’t born to see the Don Revie Leeds team but from what I’ve heard and seen, they were a team who deliberately went out to harm other players and what’s more they never saw red for doing so. We of course live in different times, every tackle can be seen from a number of different angles and quite rightly scrutinised to a mass audience. That being said, the FA now has to make a stand by retrospectively punishing those who commit dangerous tackles on an opponent regardless of whether the player gets injured or not. Only a few weeks ago, a player was banned for two games by the Spanish FA for a late challenge on Lionel Messi, the incident had been seen by the referee but the authorities decided that it warranted further punishment. The English FA will no doubt trot out the same line that by punishing a player when the referee has seen it will undermine the referees authority - this argument is totally flawed for the simple fact referees have no authority anymore and haven’t done so for a long time. By bringing in retrospective punishments for incidents seen by a referee, I would argue that the authority of the referee and the FA will actually increase with fans and players alike knowing that at least justice will be done after the game. This would therefore hopefully provide a deterrent to those who deliberately go out to harm their opponents (although there is no chance of eradicating this completely). When you have players like Paul Robinson coming out and saying that his tackle on Diaby was fair, then there is clearly a problem which needs addressing at the highest level especially given that we are talking about players livelihoods here. Furthermore, neither Henry or De Jong have come out and apologised to the players they assaulted which is nothing short of disgraceful. Yes players do earn a lot of money but in one silly moment, their career can be over and this is something we don’t want to see – The FA therefore has a responsibility. The old line spouted by Brian Kidd that De Jong is ‘not that type of player’ is insulting to all football fans and just doesn’t wash anymore. We all know that he IS that sort of player and we’ve seen it time and time again from him as we did with Shawcross and Henry.


Moving on, I think the Dutch are being very clever with the whole De Jong incident and I believe it to be mainly an exercise in PR. Following the world cup, Holland were absolutely vilified by the worlds media and by former Dutch greats such as Johan Cruyff for their tactics throughout the whole tournament but especially against Spain in the final. Earning a reputation for being a dirty side is not want the Dutch FA wants, it goes against their footballing legacy and thus I think they realised they needed to act now before it was too late. My guess is that they weren’t too worried about it until now, as if they cared so much why didn’t they drop De Jong for the last round of internationals? His challenge on Xabi Alonso in the World Cup final was infinitely worse than the one on Ben Arfa. To me it’s provided the wake up call to the Dutch who now recognise that they NEED to restore their legacy and reputation with gesture going some way to doing so.


These are just some thoughts… do you agree with me? Let me know what you think…


Tenz