Rulings in rugby now make FIFA look good

IT is awfully difficult to make FIFA look good. But anyone who has endured the baffling, bewildering and ham-fistedly amateurish disciplinary process imposed upon participants in this Rugby World Cup must be yearning for the evilly-slick machinations of world football’s governing body. Admittedly, the boys who run the round-ball code would appear to be mired in so much graft and corruption that nothing — certainly not the installation of an unelected prince as president — may wash them completely clean. But you have got to admire their professionalism, right? Compare and contrast to a rugby establishment yet to shed its forelock-tugging colonial past — and which is not close to keeping pace with on-field advances since the onset of the professional era. A two-tier justice system? It is much more nuanced than that. And the member r nations themselves go along with it, doffing their caps and makingg sure their playersrs turn up wearing ties and speaking nicely to the headmaster whenever they have been naughty. The established countries, the ones who provide the vast legal heft at the heart of the process, know they will be favoured. The up-and-coming teams, well, they know their place. Even worse than the ingrained prejudice against players from ‘smaller’ nations, however, is the sheer randomness of it all. Just because the right verdict was eventually reached in the cases of Jonny Gray and Ross Ford (above), though not without disrupting Scotland’s preparations for yesterday’s quarter-final, that does not mean we should ignore the ridiculousness of the initial hearing. In case you missed one of the key points, it transpired that a QC — a guy who sits in judgment on all manner of sports law cases, from equestrianism to motor racing, no less — effectively told an experienced, respected international match referee that he did not understand the game. The referee made a call on the pitch. Then, having repeatedly watched the incident on video the next day, he stood by his decision. What does he know, eh? Meanwhile, the chief executive officer of World Rugby has been Tweeting about how the disciplinary process is nothing to do with him, guv, he just works here … It almost makes you miss the smooth-talking duckers and divers from FIFA House.