Anarchy in the UK as football spurns law and order

The last word: By the scale of their protests, players and managers put the game at risk, says Ian Bell

Saulius Mikoliunas hasn’t wasted much time in going native. Having arrived in Scotland only in January with a near-exemplary disciplinary record, he greets what passes for spring in these parts with a traditional local rite of passage: sent off against Rangers.

Depending on your point of view, there are two ways to view the incident. Hearts fans will argue that Mikoliunas was provoked beyond endurance by linesman Andy Davis, whose perverse judgment led to referee Hugh Dallas awarding Rangers one of those late, decisive penalties to which they have become accustomed.

Others, the SFA included, will prefer the letter of the law. It might be impossible to find anyone, up to and including Alex McLeish, prepared to defend Wednesday’s penalty decision with any real con- viction. That’s of no account: if you allow players to barge officials, intentionally or otherwise, you exceed the bounds of reasonable protest and put the game at risk.

On that level, at least, Hearts are being silly if they think the SFA will be swayed by conspiracy theories. Come the meeting of the assoc-iation’s disciplinary committee on the 15th, Mikoliunas may even find that his club have only made a bad situation worse. The SFA, as has already been made clear, will stick by the referee’s decision. The chances of an inquiry into bias towards the Old Firm, far less the game being replayed, are non-existent.

How could an inquiry be conducted without becoming a windfall for lawyers? By asking officials to confess to secret allegiances? By reviewing each and every contentious incident? There is no question that Rangers and Celtic win more penalties than other sides. McLeish argues that is simply because they do more attacking than other sides. Some of us, with the paranoia of perennial runners-up, might doubt it, but proof is hard to come by.

Hearts will have to answer for Mikoliunas, for the coins thrown at Tynecastle, and, very possibly, for the aspersions cast on the integrity of Davis at last Friday’s press conference when the club stated their case. If the inquiry demand is part of an attempt to distract attention from the player’s offence, meanwhile, the SFA are unlikely to be impressed. If Hearts lose the Lithuanian for only three games, they can count themselves lucky.

Naturally, Hearts do not “condone” the player’s actions, but they offer a host of excuses for it. Clubs and their managers generally do and that, not a lousy penalty decision, might be the real problem.

When did you last hear Arsene Wenger denouncing his own player for mobbing referees, as has become their habit? How much responsibility has his side ever accepted for their notorious run-ins with Manchester United? How often, for that matter, has Sir Alex Ferguson ever conceded that Ruud van Nistelrooy is adept at fooling officials, or that Roy Keane, a man who has confessed to injuring an opponent deliberately, feels entitled to barrack referees relentlessly?

Southampton’s David Prutton has just been handed a 10-match ban for pushing referee Alan Wylie during last weekend’s game against Arsenal. In the eyes of the English FA, you can snarl in an official’s face or chase him halfway across the park, but raising your hands is beyond the pale. It’s a fine distinction: half a dozen players can surround a referee with a clear intent to intimidate him and one might earn a yellow card. A push of any description means a red card and a ban, as it should.

The fact remains, never- theless, that many players are losing their inhibitions where discipline and referees are concerned. You could blame pressure and the heat of the moment. You could also say that the punishments handed out are rarely enough to deter excitable and arrogant men. How many thousands of pounds would you have to deduct from Thierry Henry’s wages to cause him to blink?

Why should players be constrained, in any case, when their bosses undermine the authority figures of football at every opportunity? Chelsea’s Jose Mourinho, for one, seems to believe that rules and regulations were not designed for him. Rep-rimanded by the English FA for his “silence” gesture during the Carling Cup final, he last week claimed that he hadn’t even bothered to read the letter. What lesson is a young player supposed to draw from that sort of leadership?

Many fans, as ever, are of no help. Whoever was throwing coins at Tynecastle clearly has more money than sense, to take an obvious example, and they were only throwing small change.

But they cannot expect clarity and concentration from a referee, far less discipline from players, when they are trying to turn a football ground into a war zone. You could waste a lot of breath trying to explain as much.

Many players attempt to pressure the referee, to dupe him, to intimidate him, to push him into incorrect decisions. Sometimes, as we know, officials need no help in achieving the last of these. But given that governing bodies are unlikely to stop banning players who regard the men with the whistles and the flags as sparring partners, managers should be counting the cost.

There is little sign of that. Mikoliunas, it is said, left Tynecastle in tears after his sending off. Prutton is unlikely to be enjoying life just at the moment. They won’t be the last. Yet pushing and shoving aside, whatever happened to the old offence of dissent? Players, increasingly, seem not even to have heard of the word.

Taken from the Sunday Herald