The Cunha ban - WHAT??

 

One of the biggest ongoing uncertainties in FPL over the past couple of weeks, and one of the biggest impacts of 'luck' in the game's points returns in that time, has been the FA's failure to promptly ban Wolves's Matheus Cunha for his assault on a 'civilian' after the GW16 home match against Ipswich on 14th December.

It might reasonably have been expected that disciplinary proceedings could have been concluded swiftly, in such a clearcut and obviously ucontestable case, and that Cunha would have been banned before the next match - and banned for a long time. But in fact, he was most unexpectedly - and unjustly - allowed to play the next match, after all; and the next one, and the next one after that too. And after this needless two-week delay, he then only received a bafflingly token sentence! WTF???

It would have been quite reasonable, if you owned Cunha, to ditch him immediately after GW16, anticipating a long period of unavailability - and a sharp drop in his FPL price from a big general sell-off. Those who trusted to blind optimism or dumb luck in clinging on to him (for, they hoped/expected, probably one more gameweek at best), actually got three more starts out of him - in the first two of which he racked up a very handy total of 21 points! That massive return was, of course, greatly helped by the abrupt dismissal of floundering manager Gary O'Neill, and a strong and immediate 'new manager bounce' under his replacement, Vitor Pereira. FPL owners who retained Cunha, in defiance of reasonable expectations, were extravagantly rewarded for the huge - and frankly illogical - risk they took on this. And I confess, that rankles with me.

The FA really do appear to have been bending over backwards to be as nice as possible to Wolves and Cunha in this matter. They waited to issue their ban until after Cunha had been able to contribute in the Leicester and Manchester United games in GWs 17 and 18 - the only two reasonably winnable fixtures they had left before a fairly horrific two-month run of over-matched games; Cunha's absence for any or all of the succeeding games would be unlikely to have made that much of a difference to Wolves's results. They only finally imposed the ban when he'd just picked up a potentially serious injury which would probably have kept him out of following games anyway. And they gave him only a ridiculously brief two-game suspension - immediately before the FA Cup Third Round, which would count as one of the two, meaning that he would only have to miss ONE Premier League game... for his violent assault on a member of the public??

I really do not understand that sentence at all. If the referee had shown him a red card for the incident, he would have had that much of a ban - immediately and automatically. If he'd got involved in a shoving match like that with another player, he would have received a minimum 3-game 'violent conduct' ban - and we sometimes see longer bans given, for still relatively mild altercations between players.

We understand that players may succumb to a 'red mist' at times in the heat of the game, and behave inappropriately towards opposing players (or even, sometimes, members of their own team!). But anyone else - whether officials, coaching staff, or spectators - has to be regarded as sacrosanct, untouchable. And any violation against someone like that really demands emphatic, exemplary punishment.

Cunha was caught on TV cameras arguing with a middle-aged man, who was apparently part of the Ipswich 'staff' in some capacity, on pitch immediately after the game. He struck the guy from behind, quite hard, on the back of the head with the point of his elbow/upper forearm. Then he moved around in front of him and shoved him quite roughly in the face, then grabbed his glasses, pulled them off his face, and seemed to throw them to the ground. 

Quite apart from the special dynamic that this guy is not a player, but a 'member of the public', the violence of the assault, its apparent unprovokedness, the power imbalance (very strong young athletic guy attacking an overweight middle-aged man), the extreme intrusiveness/transgressiveness of the actions (contact with the head and face, deliberately impairing the man's vision by stealing - and perhaps permanently damaging? - his eyesight aids) - all this would probably elevate it into the category of an 'aggravated assault' in UK criminal law; the substantial physical element to it certainly makes it 'assault and battery' rather than simply 'assault' (which can consist just of threatening behaviour or abusive language).. [And frankly, I am surprised that criminal charges have not been brought in connection with this incident. Perhaps they still might be.]

The only comparable incidents I can recall in the English game are Eric Cantona's notorious 'kung fu kick' back in 1995, for which he was excluded from the game for 8 months; and Paolo di Canio's shoving a referee after being sent off a few years later, which earned him an 11-match ban. 

Cantona's attack was, of course, especially flamboyant and theatrical, like everything else about him. But he didn't actually land the kick; and I'm fairly sure he knew he wasn't going to - he was just making an angry gesture. The extreme transgressiveness of showing violence towards a fan, and actually trying to get into the spectators' area to commit such violence, resulted in the unprecedently severe penalty. But honestly, in terms of the actual content of the action - what he did to the victim - I don't think this was as bad as the Cunha assault. They're certainly in much the same ballpark. And the di Canio event was far more trivial; the contact was actually pretty minimal, and the referee was later roundly mocked by all and sundry for making such a meal of it - he basically got his studs caught in the turf, lost balance, and staggered backwards a number of steps before falling on his backside; but the force of the push really hadn't warranted that at all. Di Canio's offence was a fleeting impulse of petulance, which could not conceivably have caused any significant harm - other than to the referee's dignity. Whereas Cunha indulged in a sustained and very calculatedly physical confrontation with his unfortunate victim; it was many times worse than what di Canio had done.

Thus, I - and many other people - had expected a penalty in this case in a range of 8-12 games banned - perhaps with a token 2 or 3 games being remitted from that on appeal. But a de facto ban of just 1 game??  That was outrageous.  The FA appears to be 'sending the message' that it is actually perfectly OK for footballers to assault 'civilians' on the pitch after a game; that this is no more serious a misdeed, in fact rather less serious, than a clumsy tackle executed during the course of a match.

No details of the decision appear to have been released yet. I wonder if there was some major mitigating factor, which they are suppressing to protect the victim's reputation - some dreadful racist or homphobic slur, presumably, which might have been deemed an extreme provocation? But I really can't imagine any provocation that would mitigate the offence to that extent; he should have been banned for 2 to 3 months,..... and he got off with 1 game???!!!  We need to know WHY.

We really need some urgent changes to be made to how the FA handles cases like this - for greater certainty in the game of FPL, and for the protection of the public in the real world.

We need to see:

1)  Clear sentencing guidelines published, so that we can know what to expect for various categories of offence, rather than, as now, sentencing appearing to be entirely discretionary - and thus wildly inconsistent.

2) Protocols introduced for the prompt resolution of cases. If decisions cannot be reached immediately after a hearing (and, in this case, where no defence was offered, and the evidence was absolutely clearcut, it's difficult to see why this was not possible), a date for decision and sentencing should be given.

3) Protocols also need to be introduced covering when bans are announced and go into force. It is obviously unsatisfactory that a ban should be imposed when a player is already injured and unable to play.

4)  The publication of a detailed rationale for the decision in the Cunha case - so that we can understand what the hell just happened here!

Sorry, but I used to be a lawyer. Injustice bothers me. Procedural imprecision and inconsistency bother me.