Tuesday 22 September 2009

Bellamy clear

News this evening that he will not face an FA charge regarding his slap on the United fan on Sunday.

Insofar as I have an interest in the maintenance of decent conduct, and the fair application of footballing justice this is bad news. Bellamy was wrong to hit the fan, regardless of any alleged provocation, given that the fan was being restrained at the time. It was nasty, unneccessary and provided another bad PR moment of the sort we seem to be collecting. A three match ban would have been fair.

But I would be lying if I said my commitment to justice was so thoroughgoing that this news was not a relief to me. On current form he is a real asset to the club, and a better option in that left forward role than anyone at the club - even the occasionally brilliant Robson de Souza. And we could really do without his having a three match ban right now.

10 comments:

john said...

This is a joke verdict and shows that the FA are completely incompetent. How can slapping a fan in the face be less worthy of a misconduct charge than celebrating a goal on a pitch? Neville should also have been charged and banned, mainly due to his being a repeat offence.

I think the FA are trying to smooth over troubled waters, in the light of another referee experiencing the old trafford time warp. A shameful sham.

badboyblue said...

I think the word "hit" is a little strong - "ruffled his beard" would be more accurate

Unknown said...

I agree with John.....in fact the Neville celebration is worse than Ade's. First he was not even on the pitch - he was an unused sub, his celebration was over the top, he was not subject to any abuse and then he tried to make it look like he was warming up even after Utd had used all 3 subs. Finally as he has a history of having done this before, against Liverpool the minimum is that he should be asked to appear before the FA. Otherwise it stinks again of double standards. All we need is consistency

Ben said...

Extremely inconsistent here.
Adebayor got a yellow for his goal celebration, the FA then charge him for it.
Bellamy hits a rag fan, FA ask the ref for info, he says he wouldn't have sent him off if he'd seen it, therefore the FA do nothing.
So how can Ade now be further punished by the FA, given that the ref booked him at the time?

bluedoom said...

i think we only got away with this because utd were in trouble as well, if the coins weren't thrown and our garry didn't do his one man show on the touch line then i think we may have seen harsher treatment.

hughes now needs to speak to all of his players behind the scenes and get them to knuckle down, it seems there are allot people out there wanting us to slip up and we need to start behaving so they don't get an excuse!

ChrisR said...

Well if Stevie G can get away with his 'self defence' in an actual court, Bellamy was always in the clear

wizzballs said...

blimey, do yourself a favour and watch the video of the incident. bellamy did not 'punch' the fan. some newspapers have chosen to print a photo that shows Bellamy's closed hand after he had pushed it away from him.

and the FA have got this right. he should not have got involved at all, but did nothing else wrong here, his actions were defensive and reasonable under the circumstances. I also think it's correct that Neville was not censured for his celebration, as he got caught in the moment, but did not gesture offensively or aggressively. City fans should take heart from both these decisions, they show the FA can get it right, when it does not cave in to those demanding a witch-hunt. The Cheif Exec made a big mistake in commenting on the Adebayor case before the hearing had even been announced. He now has time to wriggle out of the situation. City can cite many precedents, including both incidents involving Gary Neville, in Adebayor's defence. I would be astonished if he was given an additional ban. Perhaps he might recieve a suspended ban, so the Chief Exec can save face, but anything more than that and city will have an extremely strong case against the FA. It's not the player's fault that there is such bad feeling towards him (that is a legal argument, not a moral judgement of the situation). He can only be punished for what he did, which in any other circumstance would have hardly qualified as inflammatory.

Chas said...

For goodness sake, ANY punishment would be ridiculous, never mind a 3 match ban. Let's get our facts straight. Bellamy did NOT hit a fan. He pushed his chin to one side, fairly gently it must be said. Let's get a sense of proportion here, the incident was a non-event. Although it would have been more sensible for Bellamy to just stay away, I admire his passion. That's one reason why we're winning now, we have players with passion, not like the previous set of numpties that just didn't seem to care.

Unknown said...

The only reason Bellamy got off was if he had been charged Neville would have had to be charged as well, we can't have that can we? It will help with Adebayors defence though.

Elephant said...

Now doug, you're just being cynical.

Correct, but cynical.