vukovic's olympic ban re-instated

vukovic's olympic ban re-instated

good!

Cheating Aussies get what they deserve.

Oh, Sauce

I personally don't understand the fuss.

It wasn't shortened. It was staggered. So he was banned before and after the Olympics, but not while the Olympics were going on.

He did the crime, now he has to do the time. Good call by FIFA.

The length of ban for giving the ref a high-five was silly though. It is just completely minor compared with the rest of the crap refs are subjected to which goes completely unpunished.

I'd agree with that.

i LOL'ED

He shouldn't play, ban should stand!

The ban shouldn't have been imposed so harshly in the first place.

Rubbish, touch a ref and you're gone.

He was unfortunate that they were forced to do nothing to Griffiths so the next person had to be made an example of, but deliberately handling a ref while behaving in a threatening manner deserved everything it got.

i think his real misfortune relates to the fact that his parents never taught him to control his temper

It wasn't temper and it wasn't done to hurt or intimidate. It was a petulent sarcastic acknowledgment of one of the refs decisions. I think he deserved a yellow but that's it. I think when the entire team rushes up and gets in the refs face to influence him before he makes a decision is much worse myself. How long did he get? It was about a year wasn't it? Completely stupid. WellyT2008-06-12 16:46:03

I'm sorry, I know you wield the ban stick but how can you honestly think giving the ref a high five merits a 9 month ban or whatever it was?  I don't think they should change his ban once it has been laid down, but to dish out something like this after Griffiths got nothing is absolutely criminal and the FFA should be banned for something so ridiculous.

I agree, Vukovic needs a stern talking to and he needs to be told to sort himself out, but let's look at what he did.  He got in the refs face and tried intimidating him.  If players are to get banned for that there would be no football leagues anywhere in the world.  Then he touches his hand - that doesn't cut it as violence in my books (Joao Pinto punched the ref in the stomach and was banned for a shorter amount of time).

It makes a joke of football to give him a ban like that and makes football look like a joke to everyone else.

How he touched the referee is irrelevant.  In a confrontational situation he touched a referee, there is no circumstance where in that situation touching the referee is appropriate.  End of.

The other thing to remember here is that while the ban is a long time in duration, 6 months of that is the A-League off season.  A three month ban of a player during the season would be a closer equivalent.

So if how he touched the referee is irrelevant if he physical pulled the referee's limbs off he would've got nine months as well?

I think how it happened does come into it.

And if Smeltz was the offender I would bet I would be hearing howls of protest.

Not from me...

...but I will add that from what I have seen of the two players involved the chances of Smeltz doing it are virtually nil, but Danny V. is on over-aggressive mouthy twat who quite frankly has looked ready to do something this stupid at any moment.

Joel Griffiths is another in the same class (or lack of it).
Hard News2008-06-12 22:38:30

I think the point is though that the staggered ban was pretty ridiculous, whether or not he was banned, and it's probably fair enough that this is the outcome.  Compare with the ICC turning a blind eye to Pakistan doing the exact same thing with Shoib Aktar and allowing him to play in the IPL while "banned".  At least FIFA have been somewhte proactive

FIFA are not idiots regarding rules and regulations of the game which is always a delight to see. I think the shame is really the FFA for trying to change the situation of the ban once it was established.

If you are considering that because there were other incidents of players getting away with lesser punishment for worse behaviours, does not mean that what he got was not the correct course. The response to this incident was well and fully correct, whereas the others should have there own appeals and complaints.

In the future, I like the idea of creating retrospective player bans after match reviews especially since all A-league games have TV coverage and it would balance off appeals against bans process that we have at the moment.AllWhitebelievr2008-06-17 02:27:22