By Ian Grant
Sol Campbell’s change of charge from violent conduct to improper behaviour can be seen two ways.
Justice was done in that the instinctive Campbell flick was seen as unlikely to inflict much damage in relation to Djemba Djemba’s studs-first challenge that instigated it.
However, it could have been lenient because the FA are planning far heavier punishments for the Arsenal six.
If you take what happened there is a similarity to Patrick Vieira’s clash with Van Nistelroy. The initial challenge was far more serious than the reaction where no contact was even made.
Lauren is on a couple of violent conduct charges, including kicking out at Quniton Fortune and pushing the Dutchman. But his international colleague, Chelsea player Geremi, has been explaining the history between van Nistelroy and Lauren, which made a normally placid right back, lose it a bit. He reckons it stems from a kung-fu kick van Nistelroy planted on Lauren in a previous game, but not seen by Jeff Winter or the video panel.
Geremi said: “He feels there has been a long-running injustice. It was not the right thing to do, but Lauren just lost it for a moment or two. That was not typical of him.”
Lauren too has been speaking out before the hearings. He said: “The problem did not come just from this game, but from before. As well as provoking the sending-off of Patrick Vieira, it was not a penalty and then Van Nistelrooy laughed at us on the pitch. I can’t justify what I did, but more went on than just the images shown on television.”
Too right. Whilst the arguments about the penalty decision were happening [Quinton] Fortune was caught on camera assaulting the Arsenal goalkeeper. Both the referee and the subsequent highlights and press reporting ignored that incident.
ANR put it down to Sky owning 9.9% of Manchester United, and said it was in the broadcaster’s interest to highlight Arsenal’s misdemeanours. It is a fundamental business principle to drive shareholder value. And if your company part-owns a football club, there’ll be a subconscious bias anyway, be it from commentators or cameramen, despite what anyone says.
Thankfully, this situation is no more following the sale of the BSkyB stakeholding in Manchester United to JP McManus and John Magnier for £62m.
The Irish Times has a twist on this. It says; “The most troubling aspect of all of this, though, for those of a United faith, is the sleazy, squalid and nasty allegation against McManus that is currently doing the rounds. We probably shouldn’t repeat it here, we’ll no doubt end up in the High Court (but word has it that McManus is an Arsenal supporter).”