Reading RA - From the Middle

Spitting is not the right image for football

When I was a young boy, we didn't have a family car so a journey of any distance had to be made on my Raleigh Racer or by public transport.

Like most boys when travelling on the buses I always sat on the top deck. The local bus companies. Reading Buses and Thames Valley Traction carried a large warning upstairs. 'No Spitting Allowed'. As someone unlikely to spit I couldn't understand the need for the notice.

However I think the reason for forbiddingspitting, apart from it being thoroughly unpleasant, was that as late as the 1940s, TB was still prevalent and spitting was thought to be one of the ways this infectious and life-threatening disease was spread.

Gradually the message was effective, and with TB virtually eliminated, the notices disappeared from buses and other public places. Now sadly spitting is becoming a more common sight once again. The reason in my opinion, is football on television.

It appears whenever we get a camera close up after a piece of action, the player has to have a good spit. I mention all this because
spitting has been making the headlines on the back pages. There have been two high profile cases, not witnessed by the referees but caught on camera.

Firstly Birmingham's Christophe Dugarry, who it is claimed, spat at Aston Villa's Joey Gudjonsson in the Birmingham derby. Then in the UEFA Cup match at Celtic, El-Hadji Diouf, the Liverpool striker crashed into the perimeter fence. As he got up he was seen to turn and spit at spectators behind the fence.

The laws of football didn't bother with spitting until the nation was shocked in 1968, when on Match of the Day, Pat Crerand of Manchester United spat into the face of an opponent. At the end of that season, the International Football Association Board, who compile the laws of the game, hastily added an International Board Decision. This was not part of the law but an interpretation
which referees had to follow. It said 'The offence of spitting at opponents, officials or other persons shall be considered violent conduct'.

This meant that the player committing the offence would be sent off.
Some years later in 1980, spitting was made a penal offence. The law was changed to say that 'A player who intentionally strikes or attempts to strike an opponent or spits at him, will be penalised by a direct free kick'. Of course this only applies if the ball is in play at the time of the offence.

In 1985 the law was revised again and spitting was no longer bracketed with striking but made a separate penal offence. In 1997 the old International Board Decision was removed and spitting was added to the sending-off offences as a category of its own.

The wording of the law needs to be considered carefully. It says 'A direct free kick will awarded if a player spits at an opponent'. This means the spit doesn't actually have to hit its target. In the case of Dugarry, his club are contesting othe grounds that he didn't spit at the player, merely in his direction. I leave the legal minds to sort that one out. Note also that if the player should spit at a referee whilst the ball in in play, it would only be an indirect free kick.

Might sound wrong but direct free kicks can only be given for offences against an opponent (except for handball of course). As a sending-off offence, spitting can be at an opponent or 'any other person'. This includes, spectators as in the case of El-Hadji Diouf, whether the ball is in or out of play.

Perhaps the clubs should follow the example of the old buses and as players come out of the tunnel, erect a large notice, 'No Spitting allowed'.

Dick Sawdon Smith

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