Nick Bendel
Confusing times in Australian football
April 27th 2008 07:23
Thanks to Central Coast Mariners’ goalkeeper Danny Vukovic, a fog of confusion has settled over the Australian football landscape.
It was a couple of months ago that this murky cloud began forming, as he initiated his confusingly long series of appeals. To begin with, his slap of referee Mark Shield during February’s A-League grand final was deemed worthy of a 15 month suspension (6 of those months being probationary). Distraught at the prospect of missing the Olympics, the custodian appealed, with the result that his punishment was downgraded to 12 months (3 of which were suspended). Because he would still have been prevented from going to Beijing in August, Vukovic appealed again, hinting at the possibility of launching yet another appeal, to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, should this latest appeal produce an unsatisfactory outcome. Instead, he got what he wanted: not only was the ban reduced, but the Football Federation Australia helpfully split it in two, allowing Vukovic to play in the Olympics, while serving his suspension in the months before and after. (If that paragraph was confusing to read, it was even more confusing to type.)
It is difficult to know how to react to the FFA’s decision. On the surface, it seems reasonable; Vukovic’s slap, though petulant and inexcusable, was so gentle as to almost be tender, and thus it seems cruel that it should result in the shattering of an Olympic dream.
Yet the governing body appears to be setting a dangerous precedent in weighing the importance of matches when fixing a player’s suspension. If, for example, Joe Bloggs made a particularly bad tackle and was suspended for three weeks, then would John Doe automatically get three weeks for making an identical tackle, or would he be slapped with a punishment ‘equivalent’ to Bloggs’s three weeks? In other words, if Bloggs missed a trio of meaningless games, but Doe’s next three fixtures were important, would he receive a three week holiday, a fortnight’s break, or a suspension of 11 days, 16 hours and 26 minutes? Or, like Vukovic, would he be forced to accept the full three weeks, while being allowed to miss them at the most suitable times?
It may very well be that the lawyers are the only ones to benefit from the decision, as they rack up small fortunes arguing about precedents, exceptions and anomalies during future tribunal hearings. For the public, however, it seems as though they have nothing to look forward to save more confusion, as they vainly try to interpret football’s increasingly confusing jurisprudence. But the real losers will surely be poor confused bloggers, whose job it is to report such matters.
It was a couple of months ago that this murky cloud began forming, as he initiated his confusingly long series of appeals. To begin with, his slap of referee Mark Shield during February’s A-League grand final was deemed worthy of a 15 month suspension (6 of those months being probationary). Distraught at the prospect of missing the Olympics, the custodian appealed, with the result that his punishment was downgraded to 12 months (3 of which were suspended). Because he would still have been prevented from going to Beijing in August, Vukovic appealed again, hinting at the possibility of launching yet another appeal, to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, should this latest appeal produce an unsatisfactory outcome. Instead, he got what he wanted: not only was the ban reduced, but the Football Federation Australia helpfully split it in two, allowing Vukovic to play in the Olympics, while serving his suspension in the months before and after. (If that paragraph was confusing to read, it was even more confusing to type.)
It is difficult to know how to react to the FFA’s decision. On the surface, it seems reasonable; Vukovic’s slap, though petulant and inexcusable, was so gentle as to almost be tender, and thus it seems cruel that it should result in the shattering of an Olympic dream.
Yet the governing body appears to be setting a dangerous precedent in weighing the importance of matches when fixing a player’s suspension. If, for example, Joe Bloggs made a particularly bad tackle and was suspended for three weeks, then would John Doe automatically get three weeks for making an identical tackle, or would he be slapped with a punishment ‘equivalent’ to Bloggs’s three weeks? In other words, if Bloggs missed a trio of meaningless games, but Doe’s next three fixtures were important, would he receive a three week holiday, a fortnight’s break, or a suspension of 11 days, 16 hours and 26 minutes? Or, like Vukovic, would he be forced to accept the full three weeks, while being allowed to miss them at the most suitable times?
It may very well be that the lawyers are the only ones to benefit from the decision, as they rack up small fortunes arguing about precedents, exceptions and anomalies during future tribunal hearings. For the public, however, it seems as though they have nothing to look forward to save more confusion, as they vainly try to interpret football’s increasingly confusing jurisprudence. But the real losers will surely be poor confused bloggers, whose job it is to report such matters.
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