I suppose that Lawrie Sanchez, despite having a Northern Irish mother and Ecuadorian father, is still considered a favourite son of Reading, as he started his professional football career with Reading FC.
Recently of course, he was a successful manager of Northern Ireland and he is now manager of Royal’s rivals in the Premiership, Fulham. Intelligent and well educated at Presentation College in Reading, he has always been outspoken and I was intrigued for two reasons with his comments made on television, after Fulham’s game with Liverpool.
‘It was never a foul as there was no intent,’ he said about the penalty awarded to Liverpool that sealed the match at
2 – 0. ‘I will be making my usual Monday morning call to Keith Hackett to ask when we are going to get some decisions going our way.’
Keith Hackett, as I’m sure most fans are aware, is the manager of PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited). This is the body set up by the Premier League that looks after not only the Select List of referees on the Premiership but also the league’s assistant referees.
I know that Keith Hackett has received other calls from Lawrie Sanchez since his appointment as Fulham boss. For instance he complained about the assistant referee at the early season match against Middlesbrough. The television replay showed that the ball had crossed the line in the Middlesbrough goal, which would have earned Fulham a draw. The assistant was taken off Premiership games for the next month. A rather harsh decision, however, when you consider the facts.
Sanchez and Andy Gray from Sky television both claimed that the assistant was on the goal line and so felt he was in dereliction of his duty, by not flagging for the goal. In fact when you consult Prozone, which shows where every player and match official is for the whole 90 minutes of the game, it shows that the assistant referee was not on the line but where he should have been, level with the last but one defending player. If he had flagged for a goal, considering that the ball was only across the line for no more than a second, it would have been just a guess, for the only place to be certain was on the goal line.
How much influence his complaint had, of course I can’t say, but when Sanchez called Keith Hackett after the Liverpool game I hope he was told that it was about time he got up-to-date with the laws of the game.
‘There was no intent’ he said when interviewed but, apart from handball, there has been no requirement for a foul to be intentional since 1994. Before that date, if a player stuck his foot out intending to play the ball but missed and caught the foot of the opponent instead, causing him to trip, he would not have been penalised. It required a little thought- reading on the part of the referee of course, but that’s how decisions were made. A referee could always claim that he didn’t think the trip was intended.
No longer can that claim be made by officials or players. Any tackle which trips an opponent, even if it is a legitimate attempt for the ball, will be penalised with a direct free kick, or penalty if in the penalty area.
No intent is needed.
It should be much simpler for the referee but there are players who confuse matters by throwing themselves against an opponent’s leg, particularly when they have lost control of the ball. In the Fulham/Liverpool match this was not the case but simply a foot stuck out that brought down the Liverpool player.
We can only guess what reception Lawrie Sanchez got from Keith Hackett this time but perhaps it was a copy of the laws to update his football education.
Dick Sawdon Smith
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© R Sawdon Smith 2007