Iain Hume a victim of challenging times for sport and the law

When the fateful day comes, the scenes at the FA will mirror those played out at Haringey social services these past few weeks. When - perhaps many years from now, perhaps in the near future – news of the tragedy leaks out and floral tributes begin to pile up on the pavement outside the club, you will not find one official whose job it was to protect footballers from dangerous aggression, who is prepared to do the decent thing and resign.

Confronted, they will hide behind Fifa and red tape; they will offer sorrow and regret, made more contemptible by self-serving, mealy-mouthed justifications that they did all they could. And no one will admit that what just happened is a direct result of years of incompetence and neglect, when silly little cracks at the expense of the referee and idiotic goal celebrations were deemed more important than a challenge that put a player in intensive care.

Joe Kinnear, the Newcastle United manager, is on a charge for calling an official Mickey Mouse. David Norris, the Ipswich Town midfield player, has been fined £5,000 for marking a goal in an offensive manner. And Chris Morgan, of Sheffield United, will face no further action for the elbow to the head that left Iain Hume, of Barnsley, fighting for life. Hume needed brain surgery and it is uncertain whether he will play again.

Confirming that the extent of Morgan’s punishment would be the booking administered by Andy D’Urso, another referee straight from Disney’s drawing board, the FA said that it could not upgrade a yellow card to red under Fifa rules and could bring an additional charge only in exceptional cases, in which it could be proved beyond doubt that there was an attempt to injure an opponent. It probably thinks it is off the hook, yet conversely its actions expose a failure in the duty of care that the organisation owes to the game and, specifically, those who play it.

Kinnear, and other managers pushed before a press conference with emotions raging at the end of a match, are an easy nick. They should have some form of indemnity, like MPs, or at least be allowed a little leeway when blowing off steam.

Norris caused distress by appearing to acknowledge his friend, Luke McCormick, the Plymouth Argyle goalkeeper, who is serving a prison sentence for causing the death of two young brothers by falling asleep at the wheel while drunk. The FA was correct to punish him, but the damage was already done and Norris had been publicly shamed by his actions. The case of Morgan was different. This was a very grave incident, unresolved in any satisfactory manner.

Yet, bottom line, there was nobody within the organisation with the courage, the concern or the knowledge to see Morgan’s challenge for what it was; nobody who cared enough about the future of the game to ensure that a potentially life-threatening offence did not go ignored.

Morgan’s feet were securely planted on the ground when he struck Hume and he appeared to know where his opponent was before the ball arrived. Check the replay. He elbows Hume, then heads the ball; the events do not occur simultaneously. Usually, there is a grey area in such instances. A player is jumping and claims to be using his arms for momentum or to maintain balance. Morgan could not have been better established had his feet been set in concrete, on a plinth.

At the very least, the FA should have brought a charge as a means of hearing his explanation. However, that would require leadership and a desire to take responsibility as guardians of the game, not the petty, two-bob posturing of the career politicians now in charge of football – the glib soundbites, the sucking up to the powerbrokers, every statement subject to an ulterior motive, usually self-advancement.

The FA pushes its Respect agenda but fails to recognise that this begins at the top. And how can any individual respect an organisation that knows Emmerson Boyce, of Wigan Athletic, has been the victim of injustice after his dismissal in the match away to Newcastle United, yet fails to do anything about it, for fear of challenging Fifa? Ben Thatcher, playing for Manchester City, had an additional charge brought for a brutal foul on Pedro Mendes, of Portsmouth, in 2006, but that was before the 2018 World Cup bid, since when item one on every agenda at Soho Square is how will this decision play with Sepp Blatter, the Fifa president, and Michel Platini, his equivalent at Uefa.

In this world, Hume is merely collateral damage. Nothing can be done that might upset the FA’s masters. Simon Davey, the Barnsley manager, thinks that more would have happened had the victim been Cristiano Ronaldo, but Sir Alex Ferguson’s recent comments about the persistent fouling that the Manchester United forward receives would suggest little guarantee of that. The FA is no longer interested in policing, just politicking. News just in from Disneyland: Mickey Mouse seen wearing a Lord PleasedMan watch.

The Debate - Should Chelsea ditch Didier Drogba?

The dalliance with Inter Milan may bring events to the boil, but it is the coin-throwing incident involving Didier Drogba that encapsulates the worst facet of his character.

Consider his reaction in the context of Chelsea’s present circumstances. They need him now, as the early momentum behind Luiz Felipe Scolari’s methods falter. Nicolas Anelka cannot go it alone in every match, so Drogba is his mid-season cavalry, coming over the hill.

Yet, in that instant against Burnley, he disregarded his importance to the team and placed his feelings of anger ahead of all. He did the same in the Champions League final against Manchester United in May, sent off with a penalty shoot-out looming. The indiscreet meeting between his advisers and Inter, which disrupted Chelsea’s preparations in Bordeaux, is strike three.

Scolari expects his players to serve the team ethic and Drogba, for all his dedication to the cause when he plays, remains a solo turn in his head.

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And another thing...

French lesson a turn-off

A final observation on La Direction Nationale du Contrôle de Gestion (DNCG) regulatory system that France would impose on football throughout Europe. If Claude Puel wins the league this season – and going into yesterday’s games his team were six points clear – he will be the fifth consecutive Lyons coach to do so and the fourth on the spin to manage it in his first year in charge. If any further proof is needed that bureaucratic red tape has made the French league utterly uncompetitive, here it is.

Normally, when a new manager arrives, there is a period of uncertainty, of transition. Everybody is waiting for Sir Alex Ferguson to leave Manchester United or Arsène Wenger to depart Arsenal for that reason, because it is felt that even these well-established clubs will be vulnerable. Not so in France. As all are bound to live conservatively within their means by the DNCG regulations, none is in a position to challenge Lyons financially, which is why the club are on a seven-year winning streak.

It barely matters who the coach is, Lyons’ supremacy is assured. Jacques Santini took two seasons to win the league, but once he got his hands on it in 2002, a string of successors – Paul Le Guen, Gérard Houllier, Alain Perrin – hit the jackpot first time. Now Puel is set to follow.

It makes one wonder why Lyons have such a high turnover of coaches. Perhaps they soon realise the redundancy of the role and become as bored as the rest of us.

FA’s grounds for concern

Andy Anson, the new chief executive of the 2018 World Cup bid, intends to build a strong alliance with the Premier League as a matter of priority. Maybe he has realised that after several months of being needled by Lord PleasedMan, the clubs do not feel as well disposed to the bid as they did previously and that, without their facilities, the FA has a proposal that begins at Wembley and stays there.

Gerrard’s title deeds

There were many who thought that Steven Gerrard should have left Liverpool after helping to deliver the Champions League in 2005. Each year, as the title eludes him, their argument is reinforced. That one of England’s greatest players should not have had a sniff of the biggest domestic prize remains an injustice. Should have gone when he had the chance, they say. He’ll regret it when he is older.

So if there is one reason to wish the championship Liverpool-bound this season, it is to vindicate Gerrard. In his tenth season as a first-team player, it would be fitting if his decision to reject Chelsea three summers ago was no longer subject to debate. Not out of sentimentality, because there are many deserving causes out there, but because, in that moment, Gerrard got it right. He looked within and decided that a prize won in a blue shirt at Stamford Bridge could never mean as much as a prize won in a red one at Anfield.

He would have known that, by staying, he was going to have to play a very long game. And he stuck with it. And he was patient. And he, more than anyone, has helped to place Liverpool in their strongest position since winning the title in 1990. For that, he really does deserve a medal.

Quota of self-interest

At first glance, there would seem to be few negatives in the plan announced by Lord Mawhinney, chairman of the Football League, to introduce quotas of four home-grown players in every match-day 16, starting next season. Look closer, though, and wonder.

The rule would make no impression at all on clubs in the two lowest divisions, who already comply, and would affect only a handful of clubs in the Coca-Cola Championship, mainly those who have just arrived from the Barclays Premier League or have ambitions to join it.

So Reading have a lot of foreign players, as do Queens Park Rangers. The rest, not so much. The starting team put out by Wolverhampton Wanderers, the league leaders, against Sheffield United six days ago had seven Englishmen, two Irishmen and two Scotsmen; United had seven Englishmen, two Irishmen and one each from Scotland and Wales. Not a player from outside Great Britain and Ireland in either starting lineup.

The Football League is rightly proud that 14 of the 23 England players in Berlin to play Germany last month were products of Football League clubs. Even a sure-fire future England player, Jack Wilshere, spent his earliest years at Luton Town before moving into Arsenal’s academy system. So because no real problem exists, is this whole scheme not more grandstanding from a politician keen to attach his name to a populist cause and to score a point off the Premier League, which opposes the quota system?

In almost every area of Mawhinney’s jurisdiction his regulation will be meaningless. “We believe it is time for the Football League to make an unequivocal statement,” Mawhinney said. For “the Football League”, read “me”.