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Rooney benefited from different rules, says FA

 

Simon Stone,Martyn Ziegler
Friday 09 December 2011 14:49 GMT
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Rooney (and Capello) are all smiles at the hearing in Nyon yesterday
Rooney (and Capello) are all smiles at the hearing in Nyon yesterday

The Football Association have admitted they used Uefa's different disciplinary rules to get Wayne Rooney's three-match ban reduced.

Rooney will now only miss the first two of England's Group D games at Euro 2012, meaning he will be available for the final, potentially pivotal, encounter with hosts Ukraine in Donetsk on June 18.

The presence of four lawyers, Rooney and England coach Fabio Capello at the hearing helped sway Uefa's disciplinary panel, who changed the punishment for the 26-year-old's red card in Montenegro to a two-match suspension, with the third suspended for four years in international Uefa competition.

However, Rooney will know if he was being judged on the FA's rules, an automatic three-match ban would have been imposed, with the likelihood of it being increased for any "frivolous" appeal.

"To promote speed and consistency, stakeholders in England agreed a standard formula encompassing a fixed penalty sanction should be applied across the game by the FA," said an FA statement.

"The system has been in operation for many years and meets the demands of the domestic game.

"The FA's system allows clubs to make a claim of wrongful dismissal - to reduce a sanction to zero - or appeal the severity of a sanction, both of these processes are dealt with prior to the player's next fixture.

"Uefa chooses to operate a different process for European matches, based on a sliding scale, under which each sanction is determined individually by a disciplinary panel.

"In any event a minimum one-game ban will always be applied by Uefa.

"This process meets the demands of Uefa football where the period between fixtures is greater than that in the domestic game."

Not that this has gone down well with Liverpool boss Kenny Dalglish, whose striker Luis Suarez is facing two FA charges.

"I find it a bit strange the FA are supposed to be setting an example for things yet they appeal against Rooney's three-match ban," said Dalglish.

"It's not as if it was a 50-50 challenge. I don't how they justify diluting it and don't think it sets a very good precedent for everybody else."

PA

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