What has happened to this much vaunted FA Respect campaign? There are few signs of it about nowadays. This weekend for various reasons I watched more Rugby (both codes) than football. I was impressed by a lot of things, the speed of some very large men the way they took some fearsome hits and got up as if it were nothing, the physios on the pitch whilst play continued, treating what looked like major injuries before the player got up and continued. What impressed me most was the refereeing. I am not expert enough to know whether mistaken decisions were given, presumably there were some and somethings may have been missed but, in general, there was almost universal respect for the decision.In the HullKR v Wakefield game there were a couple of minor incidences of dissent. Immediately the penalty was moved up 10 yards. In the England Ireland game a player called the ref "Sir", even though he was French. I watched some football and there were numerous incidents where players called the ref all sorts of bad things without punishment . You did not have to be an expert lip reader to know what was being said. If dissent meant free kicks were moved up 10 yards United would never get off their own goal line. If this sort of thing can happen in other sports why can't it happen in football? there are existing rules about yellow cards for dissent and foul and abusive language already but they are rarely applied.
And another thing the FA have to be stronger on criticism of refs by managers. A £12000 fine on Ferguson is like £20 to ordinary people on ordinary wages.
_________________ The Senior Member
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