This could alternatively be titled “Nota-Varehee-Niyce.” In either event the video above is worth the 80 or so seconds it takes to watch. And for any number of reasons.
A guy in a mankini (the type of uni-thing sported most famously by Sacha Baron Cohen’s Kazakh character Borat) runs out on to the pitch in a Blue Square South match between Dorchester and Havant & Waterlooville (and who says you can only play them one at a time?).
Anyway after about 45 seconds of nobody doing anything, Dorchester’s Ashley Vickers takes matters into his own hands and takes the streaker to the ground. And does so with a nice sleeper hold.
The match official promptly showed Vickers a red card. In fact both the player and Dorchester manager were ejected. Oh wait, it’s the same guy. Vickers is a player-manager.
Said Vickers at his disbelief of being sent off: “Funny thing was the stewards actually thanked me for it.” Havant & Waterlooville players asked the officials not to send Vickers off and their chairman even offered to remove one of his players to make up for the decision.
It didn’t matter. Dorchester had two other players sent off and lost 3-1 in a match seen by a total of 458 people. Fortunately, one of them had a video camera. Hell, probably all 458 of them did. It’s not like every minute of everything happening everywhere in the world isn’t ending up on video.
Might have been GOAL.com, but some site had a breakdown of pay for top-flight officials across Europe. That table told you everything you need to know about the quality issues in Ingerland, somewhere around 1/3 of what a Spanish official makes, under half of the other top leagues.
In the official’s defense, I have a vague recollection of something similar happening in maybe the Championship. Player did something to a pitch invader and the player got carded. Although I guess that doesn’t defend it. It’s still pretty stupid. Especially when the stewards were doing f-all.
Technically, what Vickers did could be considered violent conduct and is worthy of a red card. So, the referee was technically correct. And that is the best kind of correct. On a common sense / spirit of the game level, though, it’s a really stupid red card to give.
This isn’t crappy officiating. It’s called the Laws of the Game, it’s quite clearly Violent Conduct and it must be assessed when it occurs against anyone ANYONE including pitch invaders. Wait for the Stewards to take care of him…do not attack him and think you’re in the right, you’re wrong and you’re rightly sent off for it.
By the way is this place now Fox News? Do you not do any investigation you just saw whatever your opinion is on the matter. It’s a quick link to FIFA.com or you could’ve instead posed it as a question rather than impugning the official for doing his goddamn job.
Why is it a rule though?
Yep. Fox News… Everybody here is worse than Hitler these days. I think I actually quoted the laws of the game (re: red cards) in yesterday’s post about Van Der Sar, Dustin. In fact I don’t think I did, I know I did (hooray for memory).
Clearly the stewards were doing next to nothing. In fact if you read the quote, they were happy that Vickers intervened. There is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. W/R/T the latter, I think any IDIOT dumb enough to HINDER a game in progress deserves any punishment meted out to him from any corner (player, manager, official, steward). And I’m don’t think I think a player should be carded for restoring the game.
Yep you quoted the Laws of the Game…not in this article.
Also everyone here constantly talks about holding referees accountable. And then you blame them when they do what they’re supposed to do? Where does that leave referees…seriously why do they bother showing up if they’re just wrong according to couch sitters?
Ok so after much searching of the Laws, on page 120 of the document FIFA directs referees to dismiss a player for violent conduct if it is excessive force or brutality against another player, spectator, referee, match official, or any other person, so yes by definition the call was correct. I love that the player decked the guy, but that is also why players are told to move away from a pitch invader and not confront them
Your implication Dustin was that we are a bunch of idiot knee-jerk reactionaries who know nothing. That’s not the case. And incidentally far more disconcerting is the players, who were telling the ref not to card Vickers, are likely unaware the rule applies to spectators.
By the letter of the law, great the ref got it right. Congrats to him then. But I have zero problem with what Vickers did. And think the ref could have used some discretion. I would imagine the rule as written to protect fans from things like a Kung Fu Cantona kick. Once a player invades the pitch during the game, all bets should be off.
Re: your second paragraph, PR: I was thinking about why the rule was phrased like that as well. I too was going to say Cantona, but the rule specifically mentions spectators and then “any other person”, which seems to indicate a different category. Anyone know why the rule was first written like that?
Ryan – I’m not sure what exactly constitutes match official in the FIFA rules. I’d assume that simply means the refereeing crew. That leaves the coaches, trainers, stewards, etc who don’t fall under any of the other categories. And “any other person” just covers the referee’s ass if something like this happens.
However, if Vickers simply tripped the guy or wrapped him up, he might not have been red carded. I think his full-on body slam of the streaker was the problem, not the overall act of intervening and stopping him. If he just grabbed him, he doesn’t commit an act of excessive / brutal force.