Despite earlier reports suggesting Arsene Wenger could face FA charges for a post-game confrontation with referee Neil Swarbrick, the Arsenal manager will not be hauled up before the authorities.
The Frenchman was unhappy with the decision to award Watford a 70th minute penalty in the 2-1 defeat on Saturday, describing the decision afterwards as scandalous.
“It is a scandalous decision,” he said. “It came at a moment in the game where it was absolutely important for Watford.
“No penalty, no goal.”
However, his discussion with the official has not made Swarbrick’s report, and he will not face the possibility of a touchline ban like last season after an incident with Anthony Taylor.
Meanwhile, the new committee set up to retrospectively punish players who dive have decided that the Richarlison dive was not a dive, and he’s been cleared of simulation and will avoid a potential ban.
Which is nice for him, the diver.
Dam I was hoping for a Wenger suspension for a few games to change things up. Need to give some of our squad managers a run
We were never ever going to get this decision in our favour. Not that it actually matters at all because we’ve already lost. But the FA were never ever going to throw the book at him and undermine one of their own officials for a decision that would vindicate Wenger.
But you can bet your house on the first time something like that happens against Spurs, United, Liverpool, or Chelsea, they 100% will look to throw the book at the offending player that has dived.
If they retrospectively punished diving by that lot up the road, Alli wouldn’t be able to play again with all his diving- its and average of one a match for the scrunched faced cheater.
Frankly I don’t think it was a dive at all. Bellerin was caught out and messed up a little. IF the same situation happened against Arsenal and say Sanchez was fouled like that and no penalty was given I would be furious.
Wenger needs to stop acting like a petulant child who blames everything but himself for the issues.
Wenger’s acting like this is his first season in the Premier League. He should never have used a word like “scandal” about a decision where there was definite contact.
These ridiculous deflections after defeats are becoming an ugly habit. Our title-winning teams had to overcame bad penalty decisions and red cards against us and they relied on spirit, athleticism and a sheer refusal to accept defeat. Either coach that back into this team or step aside but the excuses have to stop.
Agreed
Are you implying there can be no contact between players in the penalty area. Are you actually watching football or ever played?
Sometimes the agenda drives the comments
The commentary for the match I had actually blamed the referee for being in a bad position for this type of incident. I’m inclined to agree, and this is why video review should be used in situations like this, regardless if it is a dive or isn’t. It was a very soft penalty- and the Watford player is going over off balance before he’s incidentally touched by Bellerin. He’s lost control of the ball and it was running away from him due to his heavy touch. None of this was even taken into account in the penalty award, largely because… Read more »
You can’t be serious? Contact was made but the Watford player dived or embellished what happened. Do I know for a fact? No. Could he have lost his balance from Bellerin making contact? Probably.
I wouldn’t be furious. I would be kinda pissed the other way that Sanchez would do that if he did it on purpose. Gamesmanship is one thing but that is something that needs to be rooted out of the game.
Anyways we agree to disagree
If Sanchez has done that, he would have been shown the yellow card instead. Not a penalty in a thousand occassions.
This is exactly why examples of Eduardo and Chamakh have been mentioned here.
I agree it wasn’t a dive and I said it on this website a day or two ago. Bellerin’s leg crosses in front of him, even if slightly. Yes he exaggerated but there was contact. Bellerin put himself in that position.
Arsenal fans can continue to make up conspiracies and excuses, but an independent panel have rightly and objectively concluded it wasn’t a dive.
We need to stop whinging and just start playing a lot fucken better.
It’s a contact sport for crying out loud. He’s made an absolute meal of it and thrown himself to the floor. Dive all day long.
Cunts
Why do you have to use words like this? You probably don’t have a very goof vocabulary
Goof point.
It makes me wonder about your intelligence when you decided to get personal with a guy who supports the same club you do over a one word comment. And its ironic that you picked on a guy whose native language is not English and whose vocabulary is quite likely to be at least twice the size of yours.
Ve y chinga a tu puta madre cabrón (Google it up in case these words aren’t in your vocabulary).
Spelling and punctuation > vocabulary
How the f*ck can that be their decision?? I thought for once we were going to be serious about clearing up diving, what a bunch of chicken-sh!ts. basically saying its ok to do what he did. F*cking lame-o’s.
Its exactly what Eduardo did against Celtic – he got brushed and went down – No ban. But there was minimal contact. Its clearly a dive, but its exactly the same thing as with Eduardo.
Care factor = zero
I don’t condone what Eduardo did either – its still cheating, diving is a real problem in the game, these guys are meant to be cleaning it up, but they’ve bottled it already. I don’t care if it’s against Arsenal or whatever, there should be no place for diving! You may not care, but a lot of people do for sure.
Well at least you recognise that. And I agree. I was stating it to show that our players have done the exact same thing with the same impunity.
I just don’t care about the suspension. Hard to even get excited about our games at the moment. Its probably more like I’m not surprised.
Yeah absolutely, it has to apply to everyone! I know what you mean about the suspension itself – 2 matches, one of which against our rivals, really doesn’t help us. the victims in this particular case – I’m more coming from the point of view that it needs to be a real deterrent, with proper punishments, if it’s going to work, so we can stop it at source – we have to get to a point when managers and coaches are actively discouraging their players for diving!
Yeah I agree. And like you say changes need to come more than just from suspension. Need to come from culture changes – FROM FIFA, from coaches. But having lived in South America that is no easy thing. They freaking love it. They get so happy if one of their players cheats to win, and they don’t even get that mad when someone does it to them (a bit but they laugh at the performance). Its a really hard culture to change, and I like I wrote in a comment below if you punish someone for diving when there was… Read more »
There’s no way any player can be punished for diving unless there’s absolutely no contact. And on that basis the FA are powerless to suspend anyone in all but the clearest of cases otherwise they’re opening themselves up to action in a civil court, which would always side with the player.
In a civil court??? It’s not a matter of law. No court could do a thing about it, and nor would they be bothered to do so.
If a player or club sues the league for defamation or loss of income a civil court absolutely would get involved
Last time I checked, players still get paid whilst they serve a ban.
Big difference is that when Eduardo did it, the papers were full of It for days and they used it as a stick to beat Arsenal with.
Richarlison has been all over the papers too with calls for a ban
The difference is with Eduardo – every press outlet called for a ban (despite this only being introduced this year), Celtic wanted the game re-played etc. Do you not see any difference in the coverage?
BT Sport spend 20 minutes after the match analysing the incident in super slowmo and multiple zoomed in angles so it was no different.
Celtic didn’t get the game replayed and were widely panned for being a bunch of whinging cry babies, so again, no difference.
People can’t compare things that have happened so far apart, the rules have changed since. Comparing tackles from 10 years ago to now is foolish.
Eduardo didn’t promise to crack down on diving and then come out with a fucking ridiculous call on his first attempt.
It seems they didn’t get the memo. Contact is not equal to a penalty.
Richarlison would have just been suspended for games against Chelski and Stoke anyway, so whatever, at least they don’t benefit from us getting screwed.
The little turd did Arjen Robben proud.
Actually, diving aside, he seems a very promising young player, maybe one to watch for the near future.
No he can fuck off
After seeing a few repeats of Richarlison’s actions on Saturday, I wondered what the point is of a two-game ban; it won’t affect goal difference, it won’t affect the points, and it won’t affect the result – the deterrent isn’t working. My point is this – what is to stop clubs or players actively seeking iffy penalties, regardless of retrospective action? You’re 1-0 down at home, chasing the game and run into the box. The referee is behind you and you’re close to the defender and thus feel contact. Down you go, the ref points to the spot, the taker… Read more »
I agree. There should be a 5 game ban, 15 games for re-offences. No holds barred, zero tolerance.
There should also be punishments for clubs who have multiple diving offences against them. First fines, then points deduction.
And the refs need to give penalties for fouls which result in the player not going down if it’s a genuine foul – they don’t help either.
Such powder-puff measures will do nothing to clean this up, what kind of message does this decision give?
do you think the penalty would have been called off if VAR was used?
Obviously the 3 person panel didn’t think it was a dive…not sure how they didn’t IMO.
Just because they deemed it not to be a dive doesn’t mean it would be considered a foul/penalty under Video review.
The reason there was no suspension is because of the [very minimal] contact. If they suspended him then it opens up a grey area: how much contact before a dive becomes enough to knock you down. I’m talking about this from a purely logistical stand-point. I 100% agree he dove The problem is the culture of cheating and diving in football. A suspension would have been a start but it would have opened up another massive can of worms and it would be the hand ball situation all over again. How far away from a player can a kick be… Read more »
It used to be that a handball had to be deliberate to be given a moving of the hand towards the ball i don’t see what’s wrong with that
Either Richardson dived or he “fall” as a result of the little contact. One or the statements is true, anyway, FA’s decision has laid ground for diving to be hardly punishable. The conclusion is that The FA has officially accepted diving with little contact for awarding a penalty, any referee who probably hates whatever team can now wait for that little contact moment to award a penalty, good for the FA, but not good for the game. I am sure that with this standard, players can be confident that diving is not punishable if there is little contact yet could… Read more »
The past tense of dive is dived.
It wasn’t a penalty – but can you prove if he dived or not…? football is a contact sport. contact doesn’t mean it is a foul. So if VAR was in use the penalty should have been reversed.
Exactly! If you review it and say its a suspension and not a penalty then what is a penalty and what is not. How do you prove he dove? Its impossible. Its purely subjective. You’ll start finding situations where guys might have been a little of balance and a bursh is enough to knock them down – not a penalty – but not a dive and they might get suspended and the FA gets to make that decision – fu$k that…they are already corrupt enough without giving them more power to make subjective decisions. I don’t know how to fix… Read more »
I disagree, how do you determine it was a dive? The panel have decided it wasn’t. So the question to a video ref would be like it is in Rugby, “Is there a reason not to give a penalty?” And the answer would be, “no there’s no reason to reverse the decision” because there isn’t enough evidence to say he dived.
How to determine if its a dive or not? Look at the position of the ball in relation to the Watford player’s feet before Bellerin’s knee touches him- its two yards away. Richarlison lost control of the ball and was looking to make the most of any contact.
That doesn’t determine a dive, the ball doesn’t have to be anywhere near the player for it to be a foul.
“Hmmm…seems that the FA is bluffing with this new panel.”
-Divers throughout the League
Course it was a bloody dive. But am I surprised the FA has let it go? Not really. Don’t expect we’ll get too many retrospective bans this season.
You do realise even if he’s banned, we are not “getting” the decision in anyway.
He might even miss important games against our rivals.
few, that’s a relief.
To be honest, I’m not sure why Richarlison getting banned would be beneficial for us, anyway. Surely if a player is banned retrospectively they should be banned for the return game against team in which the transgression happened?
Especially as he’s in my fantasy team!
All i saw Richarlison do for 90 minutes was foul and dive at every oppurtunity, sod’s law the only dive the ref decided to give was the penalty
So the precedent has been set: if there is contact, no matter how little, the bottlers on the panel will clear the guy of diving.
I could scream every time I hear some halfwit like Danny Murphy say “there was contact so it’s a penalty”. Last I checked, football was a contact sport; last I checked, being TOUCHED on your leg doesn’t make you fall over.
Pathetic
Like I said earlier. That precedence was set by the Eduardo decision (sure it was a champions league thing, but I’m sure it was considered in the review). Could have been a chance to change the way things go in the EPL (and maybe other leagues down the road), but doesn’t surprise me at all they didn’t do it.
I don’t understand your point Dave M, what does Eduardo’s dive ages ago have yo do here? You can’t keep going back in the past or else the game will never progress, you sound like someone against VAR by the same logic of “it has always been this way, look at this example serval seasons back”. We complaint right now because this committee was supposed to punish divers from the beautifull game so that it will, one day hopefully, disapear. But we realise that it’s worthless and a complete joke (not a surprise). This was their moment to do something,… Read more »
See my other comment with the grey area of how much contact is enough. I brought up Eduardo because people are quick to jump at Richarlson and yet I remember reading Arsenal blogs back then when every Arsenal fan was saying its a penalty because there was contact. I remember a Chamakh one where he did the same thing and the Arsenal fandom again said it was a penalty. I remember reading the untold Arsenal ref review of that game and they said it was a penalty because there was contact on Chamakh, now go over there and read how… Read more »
Now I kind of grasp your point about Eduardo, it’s about having perspective. I know we are on the receiving end on this one but for me it was a dive, I remember Cazorla also diving once and I never denied it was a dive. I say that regardless of who benefits from the dive, divers should be punished to eliminate it as much as possible. I understand that there is a grey area and that is why we should give refs as many tools as we can ie VAR. Arsenal have dived in some instances in the past I… Read more »
“the Arsenal fandom” haha. Do you even support Arsenal? Use “we” haha
There’s no way to prove that someone has dived in an objective, legally defendable way after they’ve been touched, this is the problem.
When you accuse a multimillionaire, who’s employed by a multibillion pound company of cheating, you have to be able to defend that decision in a court of law, not just within FA rules.
Questioning someone’s professional integrity is a big deal whether you like it or not, and is likely to end up in a civil court if the accused is unhappy with outcome.
Okay, John C.
If that is the case, and diving can’t be proven, then the FA should then preserve and defend the players professional integrity and stop brainwashing people that diving is punishable.
Any way the Richardson’s scenario can be proven without any reasonable doubt.
I can only say that the committee might be incompetent and they really don’t know what they are doing and they need to weigh pace the have set as a result of their decision.
The FA aren’t brainwashing anyone and there’s no way of proving beyond reasonable doubt that he dived, which is why he wasn’t charged.
If you think you can why don’t you take out full page ads in all the national press (in the UK) saying unequivocally that Richarlison dived in that particular instance and see how successful you are in court when he sues you?
Let’s see how competent you and your ability to prove it is.
“reasonable doubt”
“court of law”
“charged”
“accused”
the fuck???
It’s a game of football mate.
Exactly, but lawyers make the rules up when millions of pounds are at stake
No they don’t.
I a man not sure what the Eduardo incident has to do with anything here. It is exactly to stamp out cases like the Eduardo one (like Eduardo’s was the first ever and last diving incident known to man) that the idea of the panel came up. If they sat and reviewed that incident, yet came up with a “no dive” outcome, then there’s still a long way to go.
Never knew Eduardo invented diving. Bless me.
Didn’t you know it was Eduardo who invented diving? He was also a brilliant actor who faked an injury for 2 years just to get a free paycheck.
Thank God football is safe in the hands of the Diego costas and Richalsons of this world.
That’s not what Murphy was suggesting. He was suggesting there was enough contact for him to go down, although he probably didn’t have to go down. However, all players would go down in that situation.
Unless you can read the mind of the player and his intention, you have to give a penalty for as long as there is contact. And last time I checked, the FA are not mind readers. Expecting them to make a decision based on intention would open up an entirely new can of worms.
You know what it is coming. It is inevitable…
An Arsenal player will be the first one banned by the FA for diving.
Being a rare case of an unbiased Arsenal supporter, it didn’t look like a dive to me. Thought Bellerin caught Richarlison’s lower leg and it tripped his other foot. Not a lot of contact, but a clumsy and naive challenge from a player whose only attribute is pace and will never be taught how to defend properly for as long as he’s managed by Arsene Wenger. That’s the problem, expect it to happen more. As with nearly all these cases, if the shoe was on the other foot, Wenger and, no doubt, Arseblog would be screaming for a penalty in… Read more »
It is not only Arsenal supporters who said it was a dive which it clearly was.
I hate to be cynical but what does it matter. We still operate the club as we did before oil money started flowing through the league.
Until we start paying players 300k per week and spend 200 million each summer we will do nothing more than fight for 4th.
Take spurs. Eventually their young talent will want more money and will go to bigger clubs. Leicester was a one off while the Manchester clubs were retooling.
It’s only a matter of time before the super clubs form their own league.
The sport is being destroyed.
Stating money is the reason Arsenal cannot compete for trophies is nothing but a lame excuse. Think about it logically. The claim is that the teams with the most money should win the most games, yet Arsenal have more money than 16 other Premier League teams. If they beat all those teams home and away, as they should do because they have more money than them (supposedly), they would amass 96 points and win the league almost every season. So clearly, winning the league is not just about having the most money, it’s about consistently beating all the teams that… Read more »
Errr Hold your horses Chief. .. Teams who spend more that’s what you should consider and Watford spent more than us. Also, don’t forget that Chelsea, Utd and city spend more than we do so by your logic, we still can’t win the league
50 million Kyle walker, 50 million Stones, 50 million Bernardo silva, 50 million Mendy, 30 million Gabriel Jesus. The list goes on and on.
Our record signing is 50 million and we had to balance the budget by selling another player for 35 million.
“Form is temporary, class is permanent”
Maybe City are in good form but we are a classy club.
Aren’t Kyle Walker and John Stones crap players that are nowhere near the quality of their Arsenal counterparts? Along with Sterling, De Bruyne and Otamendi?
Isn’t Guardiola overrated too?!?
We haven’t been a classy club for years, we’re now a bunch of weak willed, hypocritical losers
The FA Ladies and Gentleman.. the antithesis of Arsenal and Wenger in their spineless approach football……. oh wait.
Cheating Brazilian twat
Limp FA. Sod off!
Hmmph, does anyone really have any faith in a) the f.a b) anonymous panellists or c) media coverage? There’s too many examples of injustice and bias to go through. The old adage it evens itself out is cobblers.
And the next time Watford lose I want to see Troy Deeney front and centre talking about balls. When did this become a thing?
What about Ozil’s one on one with Gomes that he missed despite being offside?
Just because we didn’t take advantage of our good fortune/scandalous refereeing doesn’t mean it didn’t happen!
He clearly wasnt offside.
Exactly, and Richarlison didn’t dive!
Retrospective action is pointless because the club of the offending player still prosper due to cheating! The only way to stamp it out is by making blatant or even artful simulation in the box a red card offence and if not picked up by the officials whatever the score was at the time of the penalty reinstated as the formal full time result which punishes both offending player and club ! This would not have to happen very often as the clubs themselves would clamp down on offending serial divers ! Probably better than that would be to be able… Read more »
Just make diving legal. Everyone gets loads of penalties. Problem solved.
The FA in another shit decision shocker. And what else is new?
The bigger issue is not the dive, it’s the fact that we were too feeble to get on with it and thump them with a convincing win.
Who gives a flying fudge. It would make zero difference whether AW was banned, fined or both. Yes thumb me down but at the same time tell me exactly what he’s done over the lasts few years / decade that make you think we need him.
Wait. At least he knows how to hold onto our best players.
Wait.
2 football league finals both lost, 3 FA cup finals which we one all of them, 1 champions league final, 1 second place PL, lovely new stadium oh and until last season champions league football every year. Not saying that’s an excellent record for him or Arsenal, or that the club ain’t broken, but on numbers alone that’s 6 possibilities to win something in 11 years and a 50% success record in those. (Not including second place PL as that was more Spurs being Shite than us deserving it). Just saying the statement “what has he achieved in the last… Read more »
Could it be they can’t be seen to penalise a player when Wenger has overtly criticised the ref? Stitch up…
Even in the photo, you can clearly see the diver dragging his foot on the turf to initiate the diving and yet it’s not a dive? Blimey!
I think the thing that matters about it is if it happened at the other end would we be miffed it it wasn’t given. I call it a very soft penalty but he had every right to make the most of it. Any contact in the area and strikers fall over. If the refs aren’t going to wise up about the amount and mechanism to actually make a player fall over then we have to have VAR to determine penalties and it has to be mandatory or the self-righteous refs won’t refer it. As for the result it was somewhat… Read more »
So diving can be retrospectively punished, but the penalty goal would still stand. How did anyone think that was a fair system?
Oh yeah, the FA. They’re idiots.
Contradictory: Either Wenger is fined or Richarlison is banned. If Wenger is not charged then they must have thought he had a point. Can’t have it both ways. Typical FA.
Tossers. They will introduce video refereeing and then fuck up just as much.
I’m amazed its taken them this long to get video review, since its another opportunity to run a paid advertisement.
Did you even bother to read the part where the ref leaves the incidence out of his report?
They can’t charge him for something that “technically” didn’t happen.
Nice to see the retrospective punishment thing isn’t a complete waste of time
People are convenienly forgetting that moses was given a red card for diving against us in a very important match.
The moment something goes against us, they are out to get us.
Can accept the ref making a mistake, but everybody thought it was a dive, except for the retrospective ban panel
Frankly the gaffer is making a meal out of it where he should really be focusing on his team and putting pressure on them.
Wake me up in 2020
That’s all….thank’s
If you think there was contact and this was not a dive, you should really watch rugby.
The dive/penalty was a Godsend to Wenger, it’s allowed him to carefully deflect all the attention away from the real fact, that Arsenal capitulated once again.
Who cares if they were review it retrospective punishment over a dive. It’s not like they going to take away the goal and decide it’s a tie instead.
That’s my issue with the new dive ban. I’d happily take a one match suspension if it means my team get three important points.
No dive, no penalty, no goal. Totally agree
I’ve watched the video of the scandalous dive quite a few times. This is my conclusion. The diver (dont want to mention the fucker name) at the last point pushed the ball a bit too far off for him to chase, and at that split second Bellerin legs came into a slight contact with the diver leg, and he flung himself down dramatically, with hands and legs up. Unfortunately, the ref bought it. And the most unfortunate and scandalous is the new diving panel bought it too. Not sure who makes up this panel…but they need to find previous serial… Read more »
Ah, perfect way for rooney to serve community service
Took a look at the reply of the 2-1 winner by Cleverly yesterday. It was not like he’d done a clever run and surprised our defence, he was standing there alone at the penalty spot. The worst thing however was Xhaka standing there 3-4 meter behind him,looking at him and picking his nose doing nothing. Dive or not dive, attitude lost this game, not the referee.
Monreal also ran away if you look at the replay. I don’t know why that hasn’t been brought up as it looked to me that he was the most likely player to have stopped the goal
Let’s stop talking about the dive and more about the complete mental crumble of the team when a decision doesn’t go their way. Our week mentality is a disease we have had for a while now. I hate to be one of those people…….but for the love of god please get Wenger out!
Even if he had been banned i fail to see how we it would benefit us. It’s not like we could have been awarded the lost points. It was a poor decision, but football needs to get it’s head out of it’s backside and give referees the benefit of replays. Had that been the case Richarlison would have been booked. Besides we should have had a penalty awarded against us at home to West Brom and correct me if i’m wrong but i think Watford were robbed of a penalty against City when they were still only a goal behind.… Read more »