lookupsport

Following on from the Ashley Cole incident last week Liverpool’s Mascherano completely lost the plot and as a result his team paid the price.

Without the previous weeks Ashley Cole fuss his actions would have been foolish, and with them they were nothing short of moronic.  No amount of complaining by Benitez, Liverpool fans or Mascherano himself will convince me otherwise.

He was rightly booked for the challenge and could easily have picked up a second yellow immediately after when the cameras showed a close up of him swearing, proving he has mastered some of the basics of English in his time spent here. He then ran 20 yards to get involved in a situation which had absolutely nothing to do with him.
Having got away with that he then chipped away at Steve Bennett a few more times for different decisions, before finally getting his come uppance.

People will call for consistency and to be fair they are right.  Referees will always make mistakes as will players but dissent is one area where there is no doubt.

Any abuse to an official can be heard by that official and therefore acted upon. So I agree that consistency will help - any dissent at all should be an immediate yellow card.  Ashley Cole (who should have gotten a straight red anyway) should have been given a yellow for the tackle and another for the dissent and made to walk.

I don’t accept Andy Gray’s argument that it shows passion.  I would like him to sit in a room of Rugby players (league or union) and tell them they don’t play with passion - the difference is they also play with discipline for the most part.  If they don’t they face the consequences.

If the FA/FIFA are serious about the respect issue then they should tell referees to issue a yellow card every time they are abused in anyway.  The referees should then enforce it to the letter.  Once the first weekend finished with 9 players against 8 or so, then they would learn pretty quickly and the game would be better for all concerned.