That Bites

Suarez refuses to say sorry and still believes Liverpool have betrayed him over broken promises

Luis Suarez's relationship with Liverpool will hit a new low this week when he refuses to apologise for his controversial attempts to engineer a move to Arsenal.

Sources close to the Uruguayan believe his relationship with manager Brendan Rodgers is beyond repair after the bitter transfer wrangle that has overshadowed the Merseysiders’ pre-season.

Suarez is training alone at Liverpool’s Melwood HQ, and Rodgers insists he will not be allowed to rejoin his team-mates until he apologises for last week’s public outburst, in which he made it clear he wanted to quit Anfield for the Emirates. ...

See the whole story here, from Mail Online.

Kicking Back Comments: With obvious sarcasm regarding Suarez biting incidents x2 (see below video), I have to tip my hat to managers as well. We talk about player management here a fair bit, but sometimes neglect the actual managers of these folks.

I can't even begin to imagine the nightmare that is going on inside Liverpool right now with this issue. Also, I'm sure it does not help that there is more than a few rumors about the sale of Suarez, and for that matter Liverpool themselves.

While everyone in the organization is saying "... we're not selling ..." it would seem clear that with some of Henry's other deals, and the fact that Liverpool is not doing as well as was expected, I would not be surprised to hear Liverpool on the block soon.

Now, imagine a manager of that team ... out of control players, owners not happy, and a team not doing well.

Yipes ... makes looking like managing (2) teams for (90) minutes fairly pale.

Cheers to the FA!

FA anniversary friendly at Wembley will honour English referees

England’s friendly with Scotland as part of the Football Association’s 150th anniversary will also celebrate the high esteem in which English refereeing is held around the world.

The four officials all hail from nations where English referees have overseen World Cup finals. The FA has invited the German referee, Felix Brych, to oversee the first ever international in Europe with Hawk-Eye goal-line technology. Who said the FA does not have a sense of humour?

England are the only nation to have provided four World Cup final (or final game) referees: George Reader in Brazil 1950, William Ling in Switzerland 1954, Jack Taylor in West Germany 1974 and Howard Webb in South Africa in 2010. ...

See the whole story here, courtesy of The Telegraph.

Kicking Back Comments: A fitting tribute for a talented group of referees.

It is an opportunity lost however for US Soccer in its own centennial year. How amazing would it have been to honor such greats such as Socha, Mauro, Angeles, Baharmast, and Hall among others ...

While the US does not have a World Cup final to its name, it has far less to do with ability than it does politics.

Too bad too, as US referees at that level are, measure for measure, some of the very best in the world.

'Nuff Said

Uefa’s cowardly reaction against Serbian racists takes European game several steps backwards

It’s unbelievable. It’s scarcely credible. It’s the 21st century yet dear old blinkered, blazered Uefa is at it again, failing to fight the fires fanned by the racist Serbs. Again. There are good, diligent, conscientious souls within Uefa but the organisation’s cowardly reaction towards the serial bigotry of the Serbs shames all at Nyon. This embarrassment has gone on too long. ...

See the whole story here, courtesy of The Telegraph.

Kicking Back Comments: Like the title said ... 'nuff said. I think The Telegraph has is right.

Even more right are some of the comments to the article. Here is a good, and true, one.

veralynn

Today 04:16 PM

FIFA

Brown envelopes
Goal line technology
Qatar World Cup in 2022 (Yeh, right!)
No need to retreat 10 yards - the 'ceremonial' free kick

UEFA

Bendtner underpants
Serbian riot

FA

Late stamping on metatarsals
Blocking the runner
Rugby tackles and holding
Intimidation of officials
The 'accidental' flailing arm
The 'accidental' collision of the attacker's heels and the defender's shins
Continual blind eye towards offences missed by officials

But don't worry, the game's in good hands.

REVOLT!

FA should ignore Fifa and police its own game

The Football Association is full of talented people working tirelessly for the betterment of the game. Yet admitting at dinner parties that you work for the organisation these days must be a bit like confessing that in your spare time you microwave small animals on behalf of a consortium of leading merchant banks. Or worse, that you are a journalist. ...

See the whole story here, from The Telegraph.

Kicking Back Comments: There are (2) key passages that jumped out at me.

The first is the relationship between FIFA and any National Association:

But instead of recognising that it has the power properly to intervene, the FA behaves like the society hostess upbraided by George Bernard Shaw.

“Would you sleep with me for a million pounds?” legend has it the playwright asked her. “Yes,” came back the speedy reply. “Good, so would you sleep with me for a pound?”

“What kind of woman do you take me for?” she spluttered in indignation. “We have already established that,” replied Shaw. “We are now merely haggling over the price.”

Boy do I agree with this. FIFA should leave the associations alone to run their leagues. International play ... different story. I think that works and FIFA should appreciate it as FIFA does what is best for themselves, let the country folks do what is best as well.

The other passage is:

Professional referees have demonstrated they are willing to accept responsibility for their errors in the pursuit of improvement.

The FA, however, makes them look a body of men cowering behind procedure that covers up incompetence and punishes innocence. That is not the characteristic of a robust, self-confident organization.

To which I say ... CAN I HAVE AN AMEN!?!

Recognizing and adjusting to errors is a hallmark of the very best referees. The very, very best do this within a particular match so the adjustment is instant.

To have the league "whitewash" an issue when the referee genuinely knows he blew something is not productive, in fact it is counter productive. Now this is a fine balance as most folks are really undereducated to what may have actually happened, but if a referee screwed up, I think, and the author seems to agree, get it out there, learn from it, and move on.

If as referees we are not doing this anyway after EVERY SINGLE MATCH, there is something wrong.

I Don't think he should have apologized

Sir Dave Richards rant 'unfortunate', warns Britain's Fifa executive

• Richards attacked Fifa then fell into a water feature
• Jim Boyce says the outburst may open 'old sores'

Britain's Fifa vice-president, Jim Boyce, says he will try to limit any damage caused by Sir Dave Richards's "unfortunate" attack on Fifa and Uefa for "stealing" football from the English.

Richards, speaking at a security conference in Doha on Wednesday,also criticised China for claiming to have invented football, and told his hosts they had their "heads in the sand" over alcohol restrictions at the Qatar World Cup in 2022. The Premier League and the FA quickly distanced themselves from the remarks. ...

See the whole story (and fountain diving incident) here, from The Guardian.

Kicking Back Comments: While I understand why Sir Dave apologized, I wish he had not as I believe he is right that FIFA has "stolen" The Game. Taken in context, he would seem to imply that FIFA is exploiting The Game for things other than the sake of The Game itself. To that I agree.

Also, the FA and UEFA members are cowards for quickly saying that Sir Dave was there "in a personal capacity", and did not represent either organization in an "official capacity."

Rubbish. Of course he was there "officially."

I give him credit for telling it like it is, and not kowtowing (bad pun I know given the argument of heritage with the Chinese) to the openly corrupt FIFA, and openly cowardly FA.

Can't they just shake hands?

Poyet backs Suarez "to the death"

Former Uruguay international Gustavo Poyet says he backs countryman Luis Suarez "to the death" after the Liverpool striker was banned for eight matches for racially abusing Manchester United defender Patrice Evra.

Poyet, who spent 19 years playing in England with Chelsea, Tottenham and Swindon, labelled the FA's punishment "shocking and disproportionate" and insisted Suarez had suffered from cultural differences between England and Uruguay. ...

See the whole article here, courtesy of ESPN.

Kicking Back Comments: Where is Sepp when you need him? Mr. Racism things this can be washed away with a handshake? Why didn't the FA just make the guys shake hands? That would have solved it, right?

Wrong.

I actually think Suarez is the unlucky victim of an FA message to FIFA that "racism will not be tolerated." Even taken at face value the punishment may be seen as excessive, FA is sending the message that "if FIFA won't deal with it, we will."

The FA certainly has an axe to grind with FIFA, and this may just have been the latest installment.

FA's White Horse ... again

The other day I wrote about the incident where the FA was acting as the Twitter Police by sanctioning Ryan Babel for his comments regarding Howard Webb after the fixture between Man-U and Liverpool. In this post I opined that the FA got it wrong as it really does not serve the FA or the referee well to take such action that really, looking at the long view is untenable.

Juxtapose this with the incident recently with Rafael da Silva from Man-U in their fixture against Tottenham after (frankly) da Silva lost it on FIFA referee Mike Dean after being sent off for a second caution. Here is an excellent example of the FA stepping in and doing the right thing to keep the game in check by sanctioning da Silva for "Improper Conduct." Here, da Silva was plain and simple out of line with his conduct being referred to as "toddler like." Take a look at the pictures below (and the 1000 words they speak) and the linked articles.

Photo and article courtesy of Goal.com

Photo and article courtesy of guardian.co.uk

Any questions?
It's personal (just look how close da Silva is).
It's provocative (look at the gestures da Silva is openly making).

Good for the FA, for my $.02 the FA got this one exactly right.