Following on from last weekend’s clash between Leeds United and Aston Villa at Elland Road, in many ways the headlines in the media have been as predictable as the outcome when it came to the Football Association’s balance of punishment.
With Patrick Bamford rightly charged with feigning violent conduct when no contact was made, leading to Anwar El Ghazi’s straight red card being rescinded, those Leeds fans calling the Bamford decision a disgrace are largely only doing so because an actual perceived punch caught on camera from Conor Hourihane, has seen him get away absolutely scot free.
I don’t really care if the referee saw the ‘coming together’ of Mats Klich and Hourihane, unless he specifically wrote in his report:
“I saw what appeared to be a punch, and only booked the Aston Villa No 14 because I didn’t believe it was violent conduct.”
The FA don’t have a leg to stand on.
If that’s what the Referee put, he deserves the sack. If that’s not what he put, and he didn’t, then the FA took the right approach in investigating because then clearly he didn’t book Hourihane for that particular instance, he booked him for something different, therefore retrospective action by the very definition of the name, is required.
However, their independent panel reviewed the available footage and concluded a punch isn’t violent conduct. It wasn’t even worthy of a second yellow card.
So what is violent conduct?
Andrea Radrizzani had it right.
Speechless ????!! …Nothing will stop us
— Andrea Radrizzani (@andrearadri) April 30, 2019
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