FA

Sunderland Ladies’ double demotion: the questions Baroness Sue Campbell won’t answer

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Photo courtesy Sunderland AFC Ladies

Forgive Salut! Sunderland for being appalled at the double demotion of SAFC Ladies, guilty of no wrongdoing, and thus taking another dig at the FA, SAFC and maybe the SAFC Ladies management itself. Since no one has properly explained, no one knows who is most to blame …

As everyone who cares will know, Sunderland AFC Ladies have been handed what amounts to a double demotion, excluded from the Women’s Super League and its second tier despite finishing seventh top at the highest level of the English game.

I regard this as a scandalous affront to natural justice. The FA thinks it is somehow helping “women’s football to grow and prosper in the future”, though it will not explain – specifically – how such grotesquely unjust an exclusion of a successful team fits into this noble ideal.

Baroness Sue Campbell is the FA’s head of the women’s game. She keeps a straight face when claiming the process of deciding who may be included in the WSL, and who must be excluded, is fair and rewards “clubs willing to up their game and commit to the plans”.

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How dare we? Where Man Utd lead others will follow.

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Jake suspects a fondness for making mischief
Jake suspects a fondness for making mischief

 

John McCormick writes: I was supposed to be enjoying the onset of Spring in the Yorkshire Dales. It wasn’t quite like that, and the internet connection I had was also short on promise. Never mind, I’ve negotiated the weather and the M6 and am once again able to bring you my thoughts.

In this latest instalment of our new How Dare We? series, rather than bombard you with dodgy statistics and contentious argument, I’m making a case for referees and rules. How dare we? you might ask, given the going rate for fines when half a Premiership team abuses a ref is less than the income from 1,000 spectators at a single match. It’s just part part of the service, ladies and gentlemen, which we spare no expense in bringing to you without fear or favour.

 

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Hillsborough: truths that were always known, a victory that remains bitter-sweet

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Scarves and flags at the Hillsborough memorial, AnfieldImage: Ben Sutherland

In his moving words here yesterday on the long-delayed vindication of Liverpool supporters caught in the horror of Hillsborough 1989, Jeremy Robson mentioned being at one non-Sunderland game that afternoon as news of the disaster spread and thinking instantly of a close friend who was another, the Liverpool-Notts Forest FA Cup semi-final. That friend was Mick Goulding and this, reproduced with his consent from the Blackcats email list, is how Mick recalls an avoidable tragedy and the systematic distortion of the reasons it occurred …

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Off, off, off: an improbable defence of Roberto Mancini

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What, exactly, is un-English about standing by the side of the football pitch and waving an imaginary card when a player from your side goes down under a crude tackle?

It is widely reported that Roberto Mancini has been warned he could face FA disciplinary action if he persists in gesticulating towards referees in an attempt to persuade him to send off offending opponents.

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Liverpool’s Friendly fire: wrong on the penalty, wrong on the red

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John MensahImage: Addick-edKevin

Throughout a lively, mostly healthy but at times acrimonious debate with Liverpool fans, we have made no attempt to disguise the shortcomings of Sunderland in Sunday’s match.

We have said firmly that we lost not because of bad decisions by match officials but because we could not muster a shot on target for 86 minutes.

And we are generally consistent in our acknowledgement that referees and their linesmen rarely cheat but are as prone as players, managers and fans to human error. Indeed, players make many more errors and these often lead to lost games or lost leads.

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Theo Walcott: why the FA rejected absurd call for retrospective punishment

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Monsieur Salut did not expect to have to spring to the defence of Theo Walcott again following the recent piece headlined The star’s apology to Arsenal and Leeds that changed cheating debate. He felt the need all the same …

While we had the ear of the FA – on the question of Darren Bent, Fabio Capello and criteria for England selection (which do not, we were assured, include geography, ie where people play) – it seemed a good idea to ask about Theo Walcott’s confession that he dived in the hope of winning a penalty just when Arsenal most needed one.

The News of the World, not your favourite paper if its staff have been listening to your private phone calls, had two pieces that caught my eye on Sunday.

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Prime Minister drawn into women’s football scandal

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gordonbrown

It had to happen sooner or later. Gordon Brown has become embroiled in the scandal over the exclusion of Sunderland Women’s football club from the proposed Super League of eight teams – despite being current Premier League leaders, FA (Women’s) Cup finalists last season and a team containing nine international players at different levels.

The FA has been maintaining the apparent fiction that no decision has yet been made, even though the club says it has been told – by, presumably, the FA – that Sunderland’s strong case for a place has been brushed aside on commercial and marketing grounds.

Among the many football supporters outraged by this latest piece of discriminatory nonsense from the FA were non-Sunderland fans, including Wull Rowan from our good friends at FootballUnited (futd.com).

Will decided to start a petition with the aim of shaming the FA into making the decision that would surely strike any neutral observer as decent and fair: offer Sunderland WFC a place.

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