If The FA Do Nothing, What`s The Point...?

On average, thousands of referees quit football every year at because of the abuse they receive from players and from the sidelines...


In response, The FA's Respect programme provides a series of tools for leagues, clubs, coaches, referees, players and parents from grassroots to elite football to ensure a safe, positive environment in which to enjoy the game.


When the FA launched their Respect campaign, any right-thinking person could not criticise its aims, or believe that it didn't have the best of intentions.


The only criticism sensible commentators could and did have, was the hope that this wasn't merely a well-intentioned talking shop. That it would prove to be more than some nice slogans and TV adverts that made us stroke our chins and make approving 'Hmmmmm' noises.


The FA has had a number of ideal chances to show they are serious, to make an example of someone, if you will. And the latest came with Steven Gerrard's V-sign shenanigans against Wigan on Monday night.


Excuses have been made for Gerrard, largely along the lines of 'He was showing his passion', and the suggestion that Gerrard was signalling he had only committed two fouls is perfectly plausible. Plausible, that is, if it wasn't accompanied with the words 'F**k off' from England's vice-captain, words that didn't take a great deal of lip-reading skill to decipher.


Indeed, Rafa Benitez's explanation that he was simply 'moving his fingers' is up there with Gerard Houllier's assertion that Robbie Fowler was mocking Rigobert Song in the laughably implausible stakes


However, anyone with an ounce of objectivity knew what Gerrard was doing.


Take anyone who has no interest in football to a match and the chances are they will be shocked at the behaviour that is considered acceptable in a ground, when it would not be tolerated in the real world.


It's a clich? but kids really do emulate their heroes, which is one of a thousand reasons why players and fans alike should be encouraged to behave like respectable human beings at matches.


So by implicitly condoning abuse of referees the FA are dooming their pledge to help football 'from grassroots to elite' before they've really started.


It was with depressing predictability that the FA hid behind Andre Marriner's dismissal of the gesture, but in trying not to undermine the authority of one official, they have undermined the aims of an entirely laudable campaign. A campaign for which they are currently running a series of TV adverts, that one imagines did not come cheap.


Here was a perfect opportunity - a high profile figure, caught red-handed, doing exactly what 'Respect' preaches against, but the FA have done nothing.


Managers are routinely 'asked to explain' comments about referees when emotions are high, so why has Gerrard not even been invited to the shiny new offices at Wembley for a chat?


The FA have form in not punishing an England international in a World Cup year (the dent in Neil Lennon's face is evidence enough for that), but they must separate the national side with their role as a disciplinary body.


One might wonder why/despair that a campaign such as 'Respect' exists, but if the FA continue to do nothing even when presented with the clearest of cases, it has no hope of making any impact.


Nick Miller