Source: Telegraph
Arsène Wenger's fury could play straight into Manchester United's hands
He understood that a bomb was about to blow in north London. Uefa had done his work for him, stirring the big-match pot with the fingering of the Arsenal striker for cheating over the penalty with which Arsenal began the Champions League dispatch of Celtic at the Emirates. [LNB]Arsène Wenger and his team travel north to Manchester today in a right old state. The words hypocrisy, witch-hunt, disgrace, unacceptable and indefensible featured heavily in the Wenger fusillade directed at the Uefa high command. "I find it a complete disgrace. We will not accept the way Uefa treated this case, for two reasons," he said. [LNB]Sir Alex Ferguson v Arsene Wenger: Great football minds collide"One, I believe that you can debate, was it a penalty or not? This charge implies that with intent and with a desire to cheat the referee, Eduardo did act. And, having seen again the pictures nothing is conclusive on that. And it singles out a player in Europe to be a cheat and that is not acceptable."[LNB]If nothing else Wenger got straight to the point. And not for the first time in his managerial career the thought occurred that he might be missing it. Wenger's rage is directed at the technical flaws of the Uefa position, when the real argument is ethical. [LNB]In the quiet of camp Carrington, the man with most to gain from the furore, Manchester United manager Ferguson, couched his response in terms of the need to introduce video technology to arbitrate on matters such as these. "We are obviously moving towards some sort of change. That is progress," he said. [LNB]"Michel Platini [Uefa president] has got his own views on bringing in extra referee's assistants, whereas most people in the game feel that video technology should be used. So the debate should lead to something more positive in terms of helping referees in situations like Wednesday night."[LNB]Clever. In his pre-season sermon two weeks ago Ferguson claimed that the cancerous spread of cheating was killing the game. That idea has hung pregnant over Uefa headquarters waiting for an incident on which to latch. Eduardo was its first victim. And rightly so. [LNB]Sorry Arsène. While one understands the impulse to defend your player, and accepts the points you make about the arbitrary nature of the intervention, the difficulty in proving intent, and the dangers of retrospective consideration of refereeing decisions, the fact remains Eduardo went over like a sack of spuds, without provocation. And that can not be allowed to go unchallenged. [LNB]Eduardo's puerile grin when the penalty was awarded confirmed his delight at the outcome. Ferguson is right. This kind of behaviour corrupts absolutely. It sits cravenly alongside rugby's 'Bloodgate' in the sporting house of shame. We have had enough. Eduardo badly misread the mood of the football public with that sly smile. Even Arsenal's supporters recoiled when the replay laid bare his tawdry betrayal, of himself and of the spirit of the game. [LNB]Wenger is correct in one regard. Eduardo is not alone in pulling fast ones. But that is no argument against prosecution. Wenger rolled out a crime as heinous as any in the history of English football, Diego Maradona's 'hand of god' at the Mexico World Cup of 1986, to support his case. [LNB]In fact the Maradona example dumps on his argument. The scale of injustice perpetrated by Maradona's cheating hand is the oxygen that keeps the memory of it alive. It should have brought a heavy sanction. We have waited too long to get tough with cheats in football. [LNB]Wenger was eloquent in his defence of Eduardo but hopelessly myopic and vaguely comical in suggesting that Eduardo's evasive action might have been prompted by memories of the leg snapped in two against Birmingham. [LNB]The accusation of a witchhunt in so obvious a transgression was also well wide of the posts, as was Wenger's claim that the delicate emotional state of Scottish officials within Uefa reacting badly to Celtic's exit had a bearing on the charges brought. [LNB]"I fight my whole life against cheating, and I have seen some cases when Uefa didn't intervene," he said. "On and off the pitch things have happened in Europe when Uefa did not act at all. [LNB]"Normally a situation that has been assessed and judged by the referee cannot be touched again. So they open a door here. That means every single decision made by a referee, seen by a referee, can from now on, be challenged. For me it is a witch-hunt, not an objective judging of the case. [LNB]"There is a complete lack of logic in this case. Why? People have reacted emotionally. That I can understand because this case has been ruled by the media and emotionally by the Scottish FA. Scottish people are working at Uefa. This case is more sensitive because they have more influence there."[LNB]With that interpretation let the hysteria rest. A bad day has the potential to deteriorate into a bum weekend at Old Trafford, where United seek to establish the credentials of the post-Ronaldo model. [LNB]How Fergie must be chuckling at Wenger's defence of the indefensible now that Ronaldo is no longer his concern. It is amazing how those blessed with most balance have the greatest difficulty in keeping it. [LNB]
