FA's "Respect" Campaign

[Taurus]

THE FA’s ‘Respect’ campaign was the laughing stock of football as anarchy broke out.First, Bolton star Kevin Nolan admitted he told a team-mate to DELIBERATELY clobber Arsenal ace Theo Walcott.Then FA chiefs farcically fined Manchester United just £25,000 for having SEVEN players booked during Sunday’s heated clash at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge.They also decided to take NO action against United’s Rio Ferdinand, who was seen screaming abuse at referee Mike Riley and fourth official Rob Styles.And NO ACTION will be taken either against Chelsea after one of their fans attacked United’s team bus with a bottle.Yet it is Nolan’s shock admission that really questions whether the FA have lost control of the game.The Bolton star bragged: “I have never seen anybody as quick as Theo Walcott in my life. I said to Jlloyd Samuel ‘Give him a little kick and see if he comes back at you!’“At the end of the day, it is a physical sport. We don’t want to be like basketballers. We are in the gym four or five days a week to build ourselves up to try to stand up to challenges like that.“We are in danger of losing that side — the roughing up of people.”The FA launched their prized Respect campaign in a blaze of publicity, declaring it would clean up the game.But former Prem ref Jeff Winter said: “Gradually, it’s being ignored.“We saw an horrendous tackle by Danny Guthrie at Newcastle last week and they did nothing about it.“Then Terry virtually rugby tackles an opponent at Manchester City, rightly gets sent off and the FA rescinds the red card.“Now we had a situation this weekend between the league’s top two clubs where the FA had a chance to really take action and get tough but did nothing.“The message that seems to be coming out now is: You can get away with anything because we won’t do anything about it.“A £25,000 punishment is nothing for United. It’s peanuts to them.“If you are going to have a respect campaign then it has to be done properly.“They should be fighting fire with fire and making an example of people — especially clubs like United and Chelsea.“But their campaign is in danger of being completely forgotten.”Former World Cup ref Clive Thomas said: “The FA are bang out of order. They don’t respect Mike Riley because they haven’t backed him.“They clearly don’t believe that the referee was right. United should be warned over the way their players behaved.”

[Mic Man]

The Danny Guthrie incident took the piss

[Kompressor]

I think the FA have been shown up my exceptionally bad refereeing this season and so aren't able to take any of the players to task over the whole disrespect thing the incident this weekend in the Watford game is a prime example of why certain officials deserve no respect

[Flojo]

Man Utd fans are saying to me how can Ronaldo get booked on sunday but rewind a few months and they were saying it was right for Masch to get sent off for smiling and asking whats thar for at OT last season.Ferdinand was lucky not to get sent off cos he lost it right at the end of the game.

[Flojo]

lol Man Utd players are ALWAYS hounding the ref.If Rooney was reffed the same way Masch was that game he would get at least 5 red cards a season.This campaign was never gonna be taken seriously anyway and the FA didn't help it with any of the decisions they made in the past fortnight.

[Taurus]

Ferdinand was lucky not to get sent off cos he lost it right at the end of the game.

game was over by then anyway

[Mr Q]

everyone knew it would turn into a farce.