Liverpool’s agony over the last-gasp defeat to Tottenham on Saturday has been compounded by further punishment from the FA.
As per Liverpool Echo, the Reds have been hit with a £25,000 fine on grounds of ‘ill discipline’ after exceeding five cautions or dismissals in one match, with six players (and assistant manager Peter Krawietz) either booked or sent off against Spurs.
The financial penalty under that ruling is automatic, so there’s no charge for the club to answer, and no statement will be forthcoming from English football’s governing body.
That mightn’t be the end of the punishment for LFC either, with the report stating that players who posted comments on social media along the lines of Alexis Mac Allister implying that Spurs had 12 players could ‘be perceived to breach FA Rule E3.1, which is designed to strike a balance between allowing freedom of speech while also protecting the integrity and reputation of the game’.
The fault here isn’t with the FA, who brought in that ruling to admonish clubs for instances of ill discipline such as full-scale brawls or continued rough fouling.
Rather, it’s referees who need to be far more conscious about the consequences of doling out yellow cards for trivial offences, with the totting-up process eventually coming back to haunt teams.
Looking back at Saturday, Mo Salah was harshly booked over minor dissent for a foul wrongly given. Andy Robertson was carded despite him being the player more sinned against. Diogo Jota’s first yellow card was for Destiny Udogie tripping himself. Virgil van Dijk’s was for perceived time-wasting.
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To think that all of those ‘offences’ were deemed equal to Tyrone Mings booting Cody Gakpo in the chest last May, or worse than Jordan Pickford costing Van Dijk nine months of his career in their 2020/21 season and not receiving any form of punishment, is utterly baffling.
Also, while it’s right to have rules in place so that referees aren’t attacked personally on social media or live TV, they need to do a lot more at their end to bolster their credibility if they’re going to demand it from players and managers.
What we’re seeing here is Liverpool suffering from the rulebook because of officials whose performances on Saturday were woefully substandard, and whose actions have now had consequences beyond the match itself.