Stop indulging Pep... he is an honourable man, but must play by same FA rules
PEP GUARDIOLA has been ‘warned’ by the Football Association about his behaviour on the touchline during Manchester City’s win over Liverpool on Thursday.
Big deal, really big deal. As Denis Healey once said about being reprimanded by Geoffrey Howe, that is akin to be savaged by a dead sheep.
Guardiola will not be overly bothered at the stern words from the FA. He will be free to berate another official at the next match.
No matter what the mitigating circumstances – and other than the fact it was a tense football match, there were few of those – the City manager’s behaviour towards Martin Atkinson was reprehensible.
People who officiate professional sporting events must have a masochistic streak.
When abused by players, for example, how do tennis umpires not get down from their high chairs and put the spoilt brats in their place?
When Guardiola was jabbing his finger in the face of the fourth official, how did Atkinson not respond by giving his verbal assailant a bit of his own?
An indif fe rence to jumpe d - u p , pampered, multi-millionaires treating you badly must be a prerequisite of those wanting to officiate in football and tennis.
But a line surely has to be drawn and there has to be a level of respect for officials, even when the stakes are so high.
Don’t excuse Guardiola because of the emotion of the game. Don’t excuse him because the pressure on him was so intense. Don’t excuse him because City actually might have deserved a bog-standard freekick. Don’t excuse him.
But it is Pep, of course. And Pep is allowed to storm on to a pitch and give an opposition player a lecture on how he should play the game, as he famously did with Southhampton’s Nathan Redmond.
He is allowed to storm on to the pitch at the end of a game at Cardiff and perform a nowcustomary digit-jabbing rant at, on this occasion, Lee Mason.
Guardiola is allowed to talk about a referee ahead of a crucial game, as he did in the case of the Manchester derby with Anthony Taylor, while Rafa Benitez gets done for £ 60,000 for saying Andre Marriner is a decent whistler. The game here is lucky to have Guardiola. His teams play football of the highest order and he seems a fine, honourable, compassionate character.
And good on him for apologising for his behaviour towards Atkinson. But he is being indulged.
Although not, incidentally, by European officialdom, having been sent off and suspended after confronting Antonio Miguel Mateu Lahoz during the Champions League loss to Liverpool at the Etihad last season.
Jose Mourinho would, and has, been demonised for behaviour similar to Guardiola’s. And he is not the only one. Does it really matter that Guardiola, or Jurgen Klopp or any other manager gives pelters to the stooge that is the fourth official? Yes.
Because it normalises dissent. It normalises the idea that these people – without whom the sport would not function – are there to be shouted at and abused.
They are not. For all its faults, the game of rugby knows that.
Atkinson and referee Anthony Taylor showed undue leniency towards Guardiola.
The FA should have put that right.