Even for the more cynical amongst the Rangers support, today's confirmation that the SFA will not be charging Graham Stack must present itself as a surprise.
In the past few weeks we've seen Naismith of Rangers punished for his off-the-ball actions in Dunfermline, while Hooper of Celtic escaped a ban despite striking a Motherwell player in the face, an action which lead directly to a Celtic goal.
Today's events, wherein Stack's case was considered but then dismissed, are hard enough to understand but when one considers the Hooper incident the plot, dear reader, doth thicken.
So let's try and work out what is going on here.
Possible reasons the Hooper incident wasn’t considered by Will Cole, SFA compliance officer:
1. It wasn’t brought to his attention.
2. The evidence was inconclusive.
3. It wasn’t a live game, with multiple angles, and they wanted the first case to be a straightforward one.
4. It wasn’t presented in a timely fashion.
5. It involved Celtic.
The first suggestion is the most interesting. This, after all, was an incident captured clearly by the cameras – it lead directly to a Celtic goal, so we were even offered a replay. This was not the case with the Stack assault on Lafferty: the BBC chose not to offer viewers a chance to view the Stack swipe, with the event being replayed only when STV chose to present it on their nightly news after the CO was reported to be considering it (Monday).
The SFA’s new Judicial Panel Protocol document is 189 pages long. The information regarding the Compliance Officer and how matters can be referred to him and what he can refer to fast track proceedings covers two paragraphs. The killer here – and this is something emphasised by SFA communications director Darryl Broadfoot – is that incidents “are brought to the attention of the Compliance Officer by any means.”
Some may be slightly confused by this lack of precision and what this means in reality is far from clear – whether it's an email/call by Joe Punter to the SFA, television or newspaper coverage of an incident, one of Will Cole’s neighbours chapping his door or perhaps the use of some form of magic signal in the sky, like the Gotham authorities and the Batman, is open to quesion.
What is crystal clear is that people (fans) did contact the SFA and SPL regarding Hooper’s ‘challenge’ and the attack was mentioned in the press, with one tabloid making the case for leniency by suggesting the Motherwell player involved didn’t want Hooper to be made an example of; something we also saw in the case of Naismith. So we can discount the notion that the events at Celtic Park were overlooked or that the SFA were in ignorance.
In terms of how conclusive or strong was the evidence: in the case of Stack v Lafferty (where the matter was dismissed) there clearly was sufficient evidence for it to be considered by the SFA Compliance Officer. Are we really saying that the available proof and footage involved was inferior in the Hooper case? That seems doubtful, to put it kindly.
People have made the case that the Naismith matter was an easy touch for the SFA: after all, we had multi-angle replays. What we also had was the Sky producer highlighting the incident and ensuring that both commentator Ian Crocker and viewers at home were left in no doubt that this was a serious matter, worthy of multiple review and constant reference.
Nobody doubts that Naismith was stupid or that he deserved his ban, based on the evidence. It’s simply mischievous to summarise arguments on this broad topic as ‘disgruntled fans think their own player should have got off and their rivals’ miscreant should be placed in football jail’.
If, then, we are to believe that only those who are naughty in live games will be targeted then we may ask why Hibernian striker Gary O’Connor appears to be in trouble over a dive during last week’s midweek fixtures. It’s possibly fairer to suggest that the SFA did not want the first use of the Compliance Officer to be in a case where they weren’t supported by multiple cameras and denied the boost of replays and different angles at their disposal. One doesn’t want to start a new much-heralded era with controversy.
And with that thought in mind it seems understandable that the SFA did not wish to revisit still familiar wounds. The idea that a Celtic player would be first to have his case tried in this new system – after what happened last season – is unrealistic. People may moan and groan and complain and shout about double standards, but when the evidence in the Hooper matter is both stronger and more obvious than a later matter deemed appropriate for consideration then what else exactly are people supposed to draw as their conclusion? Perhaps we need a little more detail on the ways in which evidence can and should be presented for the CO to consider – we already know that it has to be presented within a certain timeframe (and this may well be a get-out clause for the Hooper incident if fan submissions are to be discounted) but we need to know the correct and appropriate channels covered under “by any means.”
This brings us to the most troubling aspect of this new dawn of fast-track punishment: the role of the content providers and the footballing media.
Let us assume, just for argument’s sake, that the SFA will act mostly (if not exclusively) on events occurring in live or feature games. Those who recall the Naismith incident will be aware that the coming-together evaded the live camera and was brought up some minutes later by an eagle-eyed producer who had spotted the action and who presented it for Andy Walker and Ian Crocker to highlight. There’s nothing wrong in this; in fact the person responsible is doing his job correctly. But ask yourself this: what if he hadn’t highlighted it? We wouldn’t have been treated to half-a-dozen replays; Crocker wouldn’t have referred to it throughout the second half as well as the first; the half-time analysis would not have centred on it; the post-match Twitter conversation (which lasted until the Monday afternoon where BBC journalists were asking Kilmarnock boss Shiels if he’d like to see Naismith banned) and general media focus simply would not have happened. And, more to the point, those who may have seen something happen at the game would simply be ignored as attention moved to other matters. We’d never again hear about it.
Now ask yourself this question: who was this person? If you’re pretty clued-up you may be able to find out who was in charge of Sky’s output that day, but who spotted the Naismith contact? A nameless Sky employee: Someone with no responsibility nor links to the SFA or the SPL - someone who is not accountable to us (fans) or them (clubs and governing bodies).
While it is perfectly true that the SFA can ask for all footage to be made available we can forget any fancy notions of the Compliance Officer (or anyone else) sitting live at the game perusing all available angles and studying all cameras or of this chain of events happening at a later date.
So what we are now faced with is a situation where control of the game – and of who is cited, who is found to have been guilty, who escapes unseen and unpunished - is placed directly in the hands of a TV editor who has to answer to nobody but his TV boss. This is a deeply worrying step when taken to its logical conclusion and runs the obvious risk of being open to partiality and lack of fairness and transparency.
An unnamed, unaccountable man or woman can and does have a huge say in disciplinary matters. Whereas, at the SFA, had it not been for the Sun newspaper we would not yet know who the anonymous man acting as Compliance Officer was, as the intention of the organisation – once more supplied in a breathtakingly crude but revealing Twitter jibe by Broadfoot – was to insult fans who wondered about this by claiming the CO had to remain anonymous to protect him from investigations by fans into his background and schooling denomination. Today, SFA CEO Stewart Regan replied to one fan asking about the inconsistency with the following: “(it's) only a farce when you don't like the decisions!” adding that the virtual complainant had a “one-dimensional view.”
One doubts this is really what SFA officers should be doing to reassure fans.
It’s probably not for the benefit of the sport and the impression of openness and fairness to have shadowy figures playing such an important role in the selection and referral of acts unseen by match officials and, indeed, this runs directly opposite to the path the SFA intends to lead us down.
After a season where match officials took industrial action due to Celtic, and the inner workings of the SFA were put under considerable and intolerable pressure due to the complaints of one of their member clubs, we were promised a streamlined, modernised SFA and a sure sign of happier relations between the governing body and the Glasgow club came with the placing of Celtic’s Peter Lawwell on the new Professional Game Board.
All fans, of all clubs, will welcome the swifter justice being applied. Some will feel aggrieved by the punishments and omissions so far and indeed more than one football writer and broadcaster – in this case Real Radio’s Mark Benstead - has pleaded for fans to “hold back before passing judgement” as we will see “plenty more cases involving various teams” before the season ends (a variation on the “it all evens itself out over a season” aphorism).
If bigger teams are to be under greater scrutiny – with more exposure under the multiple cameras of a live match – then there has to be greater emphasis placed on the control of the available footage by those who can be subject to proper scrutiny and ultimately held answerable for their conduct.
An off-the-ball slap in a game between Dunfermline and St. Johnstone may prove to be football’s equivalent of asking whether a tree makes a noise if it falls in an empty forest but if the SFA’s new drive for speedy and honest disciplinary measures is to be taken seriously we cannot allow the process to amount to little more than the selective picking and choosing of chapters from the greater book. And as fans we have to demand that our own clubs are willing to make that case on our and their behalf.