Surprise, Surprise

By: Martin | September 3rd, 2009

Seriously, is there a bigger frakking joke of an organization on the planet than UEFA?

Apparently they have now come out and said that they will not be instituting a regular program of reviewing suspected acts of simulation for possible suspensions. So, basically, Eduardo gets suspended, and none of the other scores of players who have committed or will commit virtually identical acts will. Sounds fair, right?

I mean, I know we’re biased, but I would think that all football fans have to stop laughing at Arsenal for a second and realize how truly, profoundly messed up this is. I honestly don’t even know where to begin. But, to beat this dead horse one more time (quickly)–there have been a lot of dives in a lot of UEFA club competitions. Some of them have even, unlike Eduardo’s dive, had a big impact on the ultimate outcome. And yet, UEFA, after Celtic throws a fit and makes Eduardo the scapegoat for their first failure to qualify for the Champions League in sometime (I don’t know, I think maybe it was their inability to muster more than 2 shots on goal over 180 minutes of football, but I’m crazy like that) to deflect attention from how poorly they played and how, coming off of a league-winning season and getting group stage money that Celtic will not receive, Rangers are now the top dogs in Scotland, UEFA arbitrarily decides to ban him for 2 days. This, despite the fact that they have given no explanation as to what the standard or process used in this decision was. Then they basically come out and infer that this will not be an ongoing thing, just a one-time punishment. The best part was that they couldn’t even figure out how to fax the decision to Arsenal headquarters, and ended up to sending it to Arsenal Ladies headquarters. So basically, we have an arbitrary, one-time decision, made my a bunch of nitwits who can’t even figure out how to use a search engine or a phone book.

Really? How can we trust these people to make any kind of important decision? Let’s start talking about that European Super League idea sooner rather than later, because UEFA has shown time and again its incompetence and its contempt for big clubs, and I don’t see any reason why Arsenal and other clubs should continue to subject ourselves to Platini and his mindless henchmen. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is what finally drives Wenger off the cliffs of sanity, I can’t wait to hear his take on this, and you can’t blame him if he does go nuts. Given that the two matches Eduardo will potentially miss will be against Standard Liege and at home against Olympiakos, the fact is that I don’t think this will hurt us all that much from a pure football standpoint. But the principle of what has happened is deeply, deeply troubling. At least we can laugh at Chelsea.