So the inevitable happened – Wayne Rooneyhas had his England ban reduced to two games, the third game ban suspended for four years.
As a Manchester City fan who considers Rooney to have fewer good points to his character than the love child of Piers Morgan and Kelvin Mackenzie (if such a thing were possible), as a football fan who has fallen out of love with the England team and its surrounding circus over the past few years, you wouldn’t expect me to be happy with the decision, or be supportive towards the decision.
After all, no one could argue the red card wasn’t deserved. Rooney kicked out needlessly at another player, it was violent conduct, and that’s a three-match ban the world over – or so I thought.
And he’s got form. A player whose red mist has let down club and country before, a player whose suspect temperament always hinted at a disciplinary nightmare round the corner.
So three matches is surely fair? Well maybe not. UEFA disciplinary procedures are different to the FA’s, so you can’t really compare the two. A whole host of journalists are claiming now the FA have set a terrible precedent by appealing Rooney’s ban and that they will now be open to appeals every time a player is given a 3-match ban. But they miss the fact that the two organisations run different disciplinary procedures, due to the different nature of domestic and international football.
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There is no set three-match ban for this sort of offence with UEFA – they have disciplinary panels that assess bans, and can reduce them – as they did with Rooney, and as they have done before with other players.
Already managers are moaning too, Kenny Dalglish being the first to also predict clubs contesting domestic three games bans. The FA will quite rightly point out that their bans run under a different organisation, under a different process, and thus there is no comparison to be made. The constant flow of club football demands a different process, a different rule-book.
I don’t know what argument the FA took in the appeal, as they have no intention of revealing such information, though they will have definitely cited the example of Andrei Arshavin, who had his ban reduced to two games in similar circumstances prior to Euro 2008. Either way, despite everything, I agree with the FA’s stance, and I agree with the length of ban, if not the way it was eventually decided.