Send your comments

» Go to News Page

Report

FAM decision: A gateway to a new tradition?

Date: 09 October 2006
By: Hussain Sinan

Ashfaag (2nd from Right) red carded during the match
“if an abandoned match is to be replayed, any caution issued during the abandoned match shall be annulled..." - AFC disciplinary code, Article 18, clause 3

President’s Cup first match of course has brought a new era to the Maldivian Football. It is much bigger than the black magic or match fixing scandals that happen in Maldivian football. It also brings a big shockwave across the nation on how Maldivian football evolve in the coming few years.

Everyone’s eyes were definitely on FAM’s decision regarding the match and everyone would know that the decision taken by FAM might hinder Maldivian football or prosper in the right direction.

It might be a huge blow for the Ministry of Youth and Sports who wanted to change the whole system of the sporting structure, but with the new management in place who faced their first huge task and in my opinion they have failed but not to a huge extent to solve the issue. But I would applaud to their work done to do it the best way possible.

First of all, Maldives Football Association does not have a disciplinary code and hence they follow the AFC disciplinary code if they have to follow the regulations of the football governing body.

According to AFC disciplinary code, Article 18, clause 3, “if an abandoned match is to be replayed, any caution issued during the abandoned match shall be annulled. If the match is not to be replayed, the cautions received by the team responsible for causing the match to be abandoned are upheld; if both teams are responsible, all of the cautions are upheld.”

So if FAM decides that to replay the match, all the cautions and all the fouls issued during the abandoned match would be annulled, so it is a right decision taken by FAM to annul the cautions in that match.

And in AFC disciplinary code under article 70, clause one, if a club or a representative of a member association refuses to play a match or to continue playing one which it has begun, it will be sanctioned with a minimum fine of USD$20,000 and a maximum of USD$ 1,000,000 and will in principle forfeit the match

And in article 58 it states that anyone who uses violence or threats to pressure a match official onto taking certain action or to hinder him in any other way from acting freely will be sanctioned with a fine of at least USD$2,000 and a match suspension.

So definitely Niyaz, manager of New Radiant should be upheld with a fine as well according to article 58 as in FAM’s statement it says that New Radiant manager informed the match officials that they will not play the match unless Imran Mohamed is sent off.

Ameez seeking advice from Ass. Refere Saeed (L)

But there are questionable points when we move back to some years. Valencia chairman Adheel Jaleel was once suspended for one year for just calling a player to leave the field, but in truth their then captain Mohamed Nizam (Thoddoo) prevented the player leaving the field and completed the game.

More recently Vyansa coach Ismail Asif (Kuda Heena) was suspended for one season last year for encouraging his players to go against the referee at the end of a match.

So looking at these two occasions the decision taken against Niyaz may not be easy to digest for some of us.

Now regarding Suzeyn taking off his players before referee ended the game is a huge talking point. Imran was booed and water bottles and slippers were thrown at him by New Radiant supporters when he was not shown the red card when play restarted. Suzeyn asked his players to come down when it happened and maybe a few seconds later referee Ameez walked off the pitch. But it is very difficult for me to judge the timing as I cannot judge neither maldivesoccer.com’s journalists who were present at the match could judge exact timings.

There are international matches that have been played and when objects were thrown at players they refuse to play and in that case the referee would take the decision whether to continue play or not. So obviously the timing has to be checked.

According to reliable sources that have seen the video, Suzeyn asked his players to come off the pitch around at the same time when Ameez started to walk off the pitch. So it would be a hard decision to take by the Football Association of Maldives.

And the hard talk at the moment would be whether Victory would play on the 10th of October. It is yet unknown, but for sure they have not gained anything from the situation. New Radiant was fined around almost 50% of the gate money that FAM might possibly receive in the match assuming they would get MRF 30,000.  According to FAM, the winning team would receive 44% of the gate money and the loosing team would receive 36% of the gate money. But what would happen when victory has to play another match without any gate money? Who would compensate for them?

	New Radiant players and officials control the fans

According to FAM’s Vice Chairman, they had not thought about the situation and would seriously think about it.

“We have not discussed that issue. But obviously we would think about it”

About referee Ameez, it would have been a huge blow for his career. Victory’s former coach and the newly appointed vice chairman for technical have mentioned in a press conference during the Dhiraagu Dhivehi league encounter against the two clubs about how poor his refereeing was.

“When I saw him (Ameez) with the whistle before the match even started, I knew at that time that red cards would definitely be shown in today’s game”

“Where did he learn to referee? The guy has been spoiling football in all the matches especially in our games for a long time ago”

He also commented that he could not understand how FAM is dealing with these issues.

“I really cannot understand. He looses control before the players do lost it. So how can he be a referee?”

“For him Ali Ashfaaq is Ali Ashfaaq. No card should be shown to him. That’s his principle”

But the real question was who was responsible for all the misleading and why it happened. I would leave it for you guys to decide who is guilty and who is not?  But in my point of view there are players who heated up the New Radiant supporters and they should also be accounted for! The players involved in later actions including national team keeper and other victory player should also be accounted for! Everyone should know that FAM’s decision would bring a new evolvement to Maldivian football. Fining a club for just 15,000/- who disrupt the play when the action they wanted did not happen is putting more firewood in to the fire. It should be very well thought as those actions taken by FAM would follow up in the near future.

According to reliable source, in the referee’s reports it was mentioned that Referee Ameez did not see the events by Imran and another victory player. So that’s why actions were not taken.

But I guess there must be hearings made and if video evidences were not adequate then other sources of information should be taken. From eye witness reports from independent people should be noted if it could be done and necessary actions should be taken.

In my opinion the actions were too sympathetic and it should be very harsh so that these actions do not happen in the future.

So, now the tradition might go as if supporters of respective clubs do not think the decision taken by referee is up to their satisfaction they just come out on the field and disrupt the play. They would get a chance to replay the game and win it as well. Will this be the new tradition? I hope not!!!

....................................................................................................................