Graham Kelly: FA must navigate murky waters of discipline

Sometimes with football, the more you know, the less you understand. It used to be the case that abusing the referee was a fairly simple issue. Report. Charge. Hearing. Suspension. Case over. Not so in the notorious matter of Arsenal's Thierry Henry, however, whose disciplinary hearing for attempting to discuss things with referee Graham Poll after the Newcastle United match at Highbury on 18 December last has now been set for 6 March.

Why was it necessary for the Football Association to request the observations of Arsenal before issuing a charge? This was a weak response to a serious incident and led to suspicions that the FA's hierarchy was all away for Christmas. The subsequent long delay has encouraged speculation that spurious excuses will again be advanced in Arsenal's cause in an attempt to avoid penalty.

If I am ploughing a well-worn furrow here, it is because football should be zealous in ensuring that its prizes go to the teams which compete not just with passion, that much-abused excuse for all excesses, but with honour, dignity and grace in every respect. Any slippage in the disciplinary procedures will be scrutinised that much more closely if a club's vice-chairman is also the vice-chairman of the FA.

There has been no shortage of moral dilemmas for the FA to ponder recently, but there is no point whatsoever in talking tough if the game cannot resolve relatively straightforward on-field behavioural matters more quickly and effectively. Rugby union dithered over discipline and Members of Parliament found it difficult to replace their Commissioner for Standards, so it is all the more galling that football can needlessly lay itself open to charges of laxity.

It used to be accepted that if a player raised his hands to an opponent it was a sending-off offence, but I learned recently (I confess in what some broadsheets call a downmarket tabloid) that the FA had issued a letter in December "clarifying" the law. Apparently it's a yellow card if a player only pushes an opponent in the chest in a manner not considered violent, without using excessive force. As the mêlées which disfigure the game raise the temperature of the crowd so much, the FA should have assigned to this edict much higher prominence.

Still in the dubious corner of the newspaper market was a piece professing horror that referee Poll regarded it as a matter of some pride that he had carded his way not only to notoriety but to the top of the referees' list by brandishing cards every which way. As Poll and indeed David Elleray are now bumping along in the nether regions of the Premiership bookings table, it is probably safe to assume that discretion has a bigger part to play once a referee has made it to the Select Group.

One referee where the theory appeared to be working the other way was Matt Messias of York. When I saw him in the Nationwide last week, he pretty comprehensively belied his Premiership bookings average of 2.33 per game by showing 10 or 11 yellows and one straight red. Predictably, both boards of directors were equally disparaging after a closely fought promotion battle.

The cry always goes up about lack of consistency, but the fact is, every game is different. I don't know whether Mr Messias was aware, but the player he sent off, whom he had cautioned in the opening minutes, was making his first appearance at his old club since leaving under controversial circumstances earlier in the year.

Pierluigi Collina, the noted Italian referee who has crossed England's path so many times, takes great pains to study videos of the players he is about to control. The Select Group of English referees must find such painstaking research unnecessary, for, with the amount of television coverage, they must be aware of the characteristics of the players they meet regularly. Down in the Nationwide, this is less likely to apply.

Controlling matches there is one Steve Baines, a former professional footballer, and this brings me to something else I don't understand. Now referees are professional, why have the FA taken no steps to interest players in taking up the whistle once they retire? I refer to the average player, not the superstar, of course. It probably counts against him in the politburo, but Baines, who came through the parks, changing in the pub with the teams, referees purely by personality and experience. His bookings tally stands at something like 0.75 per game.

There's no doubt that the climate of opinion is against the official who feels he has to stop the game constantly. At one match I saw recently, the crowd applauded the referee after he let a couple of squabbling players off with a lecture and quickly re-started play.

grahamkelly@btinternet.com