Frank Lampard fined £30,000 but FA punish wrong target after dreadful Everton sequence
Frank Lampard has been fined £30,000 by the FA for his comments after Everton lost the Merseyside derby at Anfield, the governing body have confirmed.
The Toffees boss was angry that referee Stuart Attwell had failed to award Anthony Gordon a penalty after a challenge from Joel Matip, saying via BBC Sport: “It was a penalty, you don’t get them at Anfield.
“If that was Mohamed Salah at the Kop end, I think [the referee] gives that. It was a foul on Anthony.”
The incident came in a game where a number of other decisions went against his side, and in the midst of a run that saw numerous high profile calls damage their Premier League survival bid, which was eventually secured in the penultimate game of the season.
But in a statement published on the official FA Spokesperson Twitter account they said: “An independent Regulatory Commission has fined Frank Lampard £30,000 after finding a charge against him for breaching FA Rule E3 in relation to media comments”.
It went on: “He denied that they constitute improper conduct as they imply bias and/or attack the integrity of the match referee… or bring the game into disrepute”.
Brushing it under the carpet
According to the wording of the FA’s laws, what Lampard said probably did break them, but that largely misses the point.
The rules against implying bias in officials are pretty redundant if the actions of the officials themselves do more to instil suspicion over their integrity than an upset manager ever could.
VAR gets a kicking from all quarters but the technology seems to have fewer flaws than the officials using it, who are usually the same ones who it was brought in to address the failings of.
It should not be overlooked that refereeing at any level is a difficult job and puts tremendous pressure on people, let alone with thousands in the stands and millions more watching on TV.
They should not be abused by fans and coaches, and they also shouldn’t be crowded and intimidated by players, but when they fall down on the job there should be professional consequences otherwise there is little incentive to improve.
The Rodri handball in the defeat to Manchester City (26 February) was blatant enough to warrant an apology from Mike Riley, yet there was still the Richarlison shirt-pulling against Brentford and the Jordan Ayew foul on Anthony Gordon, as well as the Anfield issues, after that so it is no surprise that Lampard was upset.
But there are no reports of fines from the FA to the PGMOL for the Manchester City game or anything since.
On the contrary, it seems like for certain referees it is a one-way street to promotion, if Jon Moss’ ignominious retirement into a management role is anything to go by.
His performance in the game between Aston Villa and Liverpool was criticised by Steven Gerrard (10 May), and his error in the final day encounter between Leicester and Southampton allowed the hosts to score the opener when they shouldn’t have had possession (22 May).
Yet he still went on to be given the Championship playoff final as his last match, despite the stakes being huge in what is often referred to as “the richest game in football”, where he duly failed to award Huddersfield two penalties despite very strong claims as Nottingham Forest won 1-0.
Fining the Toffees boss does nothing to address the issue of wildly inconsistent decision-making, and doesn’t even do much to stifle criticism, as Gerrard got away without punishment for making his feelings quite clear on Moss but doing it in a slightly subtler way.
Moss has surely been incompetent rather than anything more sinister and he is merely the most obvious recent example of a wider issue, as it was different officials who were involved in all of the Toffees incidents, and in each case there was a video assistant complicit.
But the point remains that while Moss becomes PGMOL Select Group 1 manager, the FA see fit to fine the Everton manager.
Again, referees do a difficult job and some do very well on the whole, but faith in the decision-making is not high after the past season and the words of unhappy managers is hardly the root cause.
Punishing dissent while allowing the issue to proliferate seems not only an authoritarian position but it leaves a vacuum for conspiracy and anger to grow, which an honest acknowledgement of mistakes would help avoid.
In other Everton news, the FA have followed up that move with a new charge for a key Toffees figure just a day later, but he seems not to care based on his defiant response online.
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