Following the campaign run by this blog FIFA have now said that they will meet the FA to discuss the pathetic 3 match ban that Birmingham City’s Martin Taylor got following his tackle on Eduardo which left him unable to play for at least 9 months.
Since then the Birmingham manager and the Birmingham owner have been very outspoken in claiming (wrongly) that FIFA has no jurisdiction over the matter. We have been urging FIFA to reject this view. In a statement to Reuters on Thursday FIFA has now confirmed that its disciplinary committee had reviewed the FA’s file on Taylor and sent a letter back requesting that it “once again review the incident in detail and reconsider the sanction”.
Sepp Blatter has told reporters this month that FIFA was aiming to crack down on tackles that caused serious injuries. “We are considering a number of options,” Blatter said. “But one we could consider is if a player is out injured for nine months, then the player who has caused him that injury also cannot play again until his victim has recovered.”
The FA has argued that it cannot impose a heavier sanction on Taylor without proof that he intended to harm Eduardo during the match in Birmingham on February 23rd.
We have argued that the attitude of Taylor was influenced by a three year media campaign which stressed that if lesser teams like Birmingham wanted to stop Arsenal winning they had to indulge in kicking Arsenal. We argue that Sunderland did exactly this to Diaby, and that we are seeing this approach in a number of matches.
Our argument is that Taylor’s approach was influenced by the press, but that he and Birmingham must take responsibility because Birmingham did not overtly tell Taylor and others to ignore the “kick Arsenal” campaign and just play football by the rules.
In a separate incident Birmingham City FC was raided by police yesterday who removed documents. Details below.
