Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe has leapt to the defence of Simon Francis after claims the Cherries skipper should have seen red during the Boxing Day draw with West Ham. Francis received a yellow card after his high studs-up challenge had caught Hammers midfielder Cheikhou Kouyate in the face.
West Ham boss David Moyes was joined in his condemnation of referee Bobby Madley’s decision by former Premier League officials Graham Poll, Keith Hackett and Dermot Gallagher.
Howe told the Bournemouth Daily Echo: “I had a great view of it and it was right in front of me. The ball went over Simon’s head and he was looking at the ball. He had no idea the West Ham player was there.
“It was a nasty incident and I am not going to say it was nice for the lad to receive Simon’s boot in his face but there was no intent. And if there is no intent in a situation like that there is no way he can be sent off.”
No surprise that Eddie Howe would make such a defensive statement in order to protect his player, Francis. It may be naive and trite, but it is a leadership act of a kind. Eddie wNts to tell the footballing world that his player did not “intend” to raise his boot face high and follow through with his leg and connecting firmly with Kouyate’s face. The problem with Eddie’s statement is the matter of ‘intent’. How can Eddie know his players intention or motive? If I raise my leg in a game to head height to win a ball, knowing opponents are close by, in a relegation zone game I know that my intention is to signal to the opposition: I want this as much as you do, even more, and here’s the proof of my intent. Follow through and boot on jaw. End of. This is what some footballers will do every level of the game. When three points are at stake the risk assessment of any challenge to win the ball is far more dubious.
Turing to Referee Madley. How can he know Francis’ intent or motive? He can’t, of course. So he has to make a judgement call.
Law 12 -Fouls and Misconduct states that ‘ungentlemanly conduct’ is a yellow card or cautionable offence. While violent conduct or serious foul play is a red card/dismissal offence. Referee Madley adjudged Francis’ action to win the ball with a head-high lunge and challenge to an opponents face/jaw to constitute ungentlemanly conduct at worst. That was his judgement call. Officials have wide discretionary power in making such calls. This is why one referee would issue a red card where another would brandish only a yellow. When the ref’s judgment call goes in your teams favour it’s considered to be an accurate, fair call. Evidence of the referee’s competence and lack of bias. When it doesn’t it can be construed to be anything from evidence of a ‘Northern’ conspiracy against your team, to professional incompetence.
In Madley’s case his professional incompetence hinges on a poor judgement call made in the context of a bottom of the PL table battle over three precious points. Referee’s are invited by the FA in their training to consider the wider context that may help the interpretation of an action or incident. Madley’s reading of the context was appalling. In a hard fought game for points contributing to PL survival Madley interpreted Francis’ head high boot with studs showing to be ‘ungentlemanly conduct’. However, given the desperate and critical context, Francis’ act could be construed as a full blooded, bullish effort to win the ball at any cost, without care and consideration for the safety of an opponent, who also earns a living in this way. And in doing this it sends a message to the opposition: ‘we mean business here at any cost, do you?’ In this wider context, the physical assault/ aggressive arm being placed on Obiang can be seen in a similar light.
In my view, the issue here is that referee Madley did not allow the wider context to inform his judgement call. That is the real or true extent of his professional incompetence: his single failure to see Francis’ action in the wider context of this particular game and what it meant to both clubs, their manager’s status, and their players. This was later compounded by overruling his Assistant’s perfectly correct decision about an offside player nudging the ball into the net as if by ‘magic’. Madley simply did not turn up at the races.
Watching the Francis-Kouyate incident again (and again) I’m clear about a few things: Francis knew what he was doing by choosing to raise his boot to head height to win a ball, and no matter how instinctive it is to try and win the ball, or that there was no intention to hurt another player, if the action has the effect of hurting an opponent then it has to be deemed serious foul play. Note how Francis makes little or no attempt even when he becomes aware of Kouyate’s presence to lower his boot, or to make a gesture of ‘****, that wasn’t meant to happen’. In my viewings of the incident, Francis follows through on Kouyate. He makes no effort to hold back. Shockingly, the MotD commentator immediately sprung to the defence of Francis suggesting that Kouyate was partially at fault for ‘leaning in’, presumably to the high leg and boot studs. That is a seriously misleading and mistaken bit of commentary. And don’t lose sight of the assault on Obiang. An arm was directed at Obiang in an aggressive manner and connected with his body: this is violent conduct. Even if this was played down by the MotD ‘chuckle brothers’ in attributing to frustration what could be construed as a physical assault to a player. How can frustration excuse violent conduct?
Neither Eddie Howe nor Referee Madley can ‘know’ Francis’ intention and motive in raising his boot, studs showing, to head height and following through to make contact with Kouyate’s face. So why make the inane statement that the player had no intent to hurt an opponent? This is insulting.
That said, Eddie Howe’s crass defence of Francis is understandable when considered through Howe’s lens of leadership. When there is controversy and contention because of a shadow of doubt – nobody can really know if Francis meant to hurt a Hammers player can they? – it is the role of leadership to look after your player. Howe is trying to take the heat off his player. Although to claim that his player had no intention to hurt Kouyate is of little relevance here. An opponent’s jaw or neck could have been broken and a serious injury sustained by such action. The action with or without intentionality was serious foul play.
But what of the assault on Pedro Obiang? Will the FA be reviewing that incident and taking retrospective disciplinary action and applying Law 12 on violent conduct? After all, the referee didn’t even see the incident. What is our Club doing to protect their player and to prosecute that matter on principle? No evidence of strong Club leadership to be seen.
What has Mr Moyes said about this, and what is he doing? Why would you give your commitment as a player to a manager/coach who does not show moral and ethical courage in standing up for his players in the public arena? Mr Moyes: no way is this good enough leadership on your part. And what of the co-owners? Where is their moral and ethical leadership in this matter…sorry, I forgot, it’s ‘money, money, money’. A Club’s ‘Brand’ does not come from advertising spend alone, nor yet through being bought out by an oligarch or plutocrat. It comes from an ethos embodied within a Club that is given genuine expression through sustained actions and behaviours (not words alone) that are perceived by onlookers to be principled, moral, ethical and credible.
According to the Mirror report it seems that the Club is taking a “leadership stand” over the overruling of the offside call by the AssRef. Better late than never. COYI