CHAOS RULES
If the SFA are forced to keep explaining laws of the game to fans and managers, one thing is clear
MARK TWAIN compared the process of explaining a joke to dissecting a frog. You might learn something along the way, but it still dies in the end.
This season the SFA’s judicial system has become a joke too clever for its own good. A process so complex and incomprehensible it should be sliced up and diced.
The governing body think their decisions would make perfect sense if managers and fans only understood the rules.
That’s why, last month, they stuck some questions and answers on the SFA website to try to explain when and how compliance officer Clare Whyte can take retrospective action against players.
But the more the SFA have to explain how things work, the more obvious it becomes that the ignorance of managers, journalists and supporters is no longer the problem. It’s the rules themselves.
The governing body can tell people till they’re blue in the face that there perfect consistency in the way Whyte applies them.
But their Q&A could be painted in huge letters on a banner draped over Hampden and people still wouldn’t begin to comprehend how St Mirren’s Paul McGinn managed to launch a forearm smash at Cammy Smith of Dundee United and finish up with nothing stronger than a yellow card.
The governing body say the compliance officer can only offer players a retrospective suspension if an ‘on-field incident, or an exceptional part of an on field incident, has been unseen by the match officials.’
And the words ‘exceptional part’ are key here. When Scott McKenna of Aberdeen clattered Celtic’s Odsonne Edouard in September, referee Bobby Madden said he saw it. But the SFA’s written reasons explained that the compliance officer stepped in when Madden ‘later stated in his written statement he was unsure of the extent of the contact (with the opposing player) and did not award a free-kick.’
Or, to put it another way, Madden missed the part of the incident that actually mattered and the compliance officer intervened.
All of which brings us back to McGinn vs Smith, a straw so violent the camel should have stuck in a claim for a broken back.
highlights of St Mirren losing to Dundee United last Saturday are still available on the BBC iPlayer. And after six minutes and 49 seconds they show McGinn’s upper arm clattering into Smith at high speed.
Referee Willie Collum was no more than six yards away. He was so close to the action he should have been munching popcorn.
Collum, remember, sent off Daniel Candeias of Rangers for blowing kisses to an opponent at the same ground in November.
Yet, for a challenge more suited to mixed martial arts than a football pitch, he settled for a yellow card.
All of which raises two awkward questions for the SFA compliance officer.
If wee Willie was close enough to see the sweat on the player’s brow, what gave Whyte the green light to step in?
And how on God’s earth could anyone review that footage and conclude it was anything other than an ‘obvious refereeing error’?
If McGinn trying to decapitate a former team-mate is not the perfect example of ‘endangering the safety of an opponent’ then the mind boggles as to what is.
Had McGinn, Alan Power of Kilmarnock, Darnell Johnson of Hibs and Rangers keeper Allan McGregor all finished up with red cards for endangering the safety of opponents this week, people would still have complained bitterly. But at least they would have seen some strand of consistent logic.
Yet only two of them finished up with retrospective bans. And the SFA have now sent out the message that risking a head injury to an opponent is no worse than celebrating a goal in front of fans.
Let’s be honest, people now have no idea what constitutes a red card. The rules are all over the place.
Rangers claim the system is ‘flawed’ and want a review with ‘extreme urgency.’
And, privately, members of the SFA Board now accept the situation can’t go on like this.
But for change to happen, clubs have to stop bickering and start talking.
When push comes to shove, the clubs are the SFA. They hold all the power.
And if they’re as tired as the rest of us are of hearing bad jokes explained time after time, they’re obliged to do something about it this summer.
The SFA created the job of compliance officer to correct miscarriages of justice. Not create them.