Total Agreement - Surely some mistake?!

The thing about football is there is always a controversial incident every weekend – this week there was Howard Webb’s decision to give an indirect free-kick for a back pass, then to let Bolton take the free kick quickly and score. Howard isn’t afraid to take the big decisions so good luck to him, he is the best referee in the country for a reason.

Not everyone was pleased but that’s the nature of sport.

However, another issue occurred on Sunday and it resulted in the rarest of football phenomenon – almost total agreement.

As you will no doubt have seen Wigan’s Paraguay International defender Antolin Alcaraz has been banned for three games for spitting at Wolves player Richard Stearman.

And if we may be so bold that punishment isn’t enough.

In World Cup 1990 there was a vile incident which saw Frank Rijkaard spit at Rudi Voeller in a particularly nasty game. Jack Charlton was the Manager of The Republic of Ireland at the time and he was asked what he would have done if he had been spat at, he thought for barely a second and said: “I’d have chinned him, and I’d tell my players to do the same.”

I was reminded of those comments when I read what Wolves boss Mick McCarthy had to say about Alcaraz: "I only had it [being spat at] happen to me once and the player didn't come too close to me for a long time."

All of which goes to show the level of disgust that football people have for spitting. Bad tackles are unacceptable, of course, but at least it seems to be a legitimate football incident.

Joe Royle, the former Everton and Manchester City manager, was on TV a couple of years ago and he summed it up: “You see players getting sent off for kicking the ball away or taking their shirts off and you think to yourself ‘just chin someone, the punishment is the same.’

Now, it would be totally unprofessional of Referee-jobs.com to condone anyone hitting anyone, you sort of know what he means.

From our perspective the officials have a job to do and rules to enforce and they do that to the best of their ability, and it is not their fault – as we have discussed before on these blogs – if “common sense” cannot be applied.

But Referee Lee Probert didn’t see the spitting incident, and who can blame him? But maybe there is a case for saying that the FA could, perhaps, have come down harder on Alcaraz. In 1999 Patrick Vieira was banned for six games and fined £30,000 for spitting at Neil Ruddock for example, but the defender “accepted” his three game ban – and so he should too.

And one final thought. Latics boss Roberto Martinez has apparently apologised to Wolves on behalf of the club. Why hasn’t Alcaraz himself released a statement (if he has I haven’t seen it) wouldn’t just a little humility have gone a long way?