Published: 21 March, 2013

TONY Dallas talks sport… and with more than 20 years working as a sports development officer he knows what he’s on about ANYONE who’s suffered a bad sports injury will have immense sympathy for Newcastle defender Massadio Haidara, who was stretchered off with a serious knee injury on Sunday after a tackle by Wigan’s Callum McManaman.

I’ve had such impact injuries and, although not playing professionally, I was never the same again. Those who saw the tackle by McManaman can be forgiven for flinching or looking away because it was horrendous.

Referee Mark Halsey was clearly unsighted and apparently apologised to Toon manager Alan Pardew at half time for not seeing it.

The linesman, oops, the referee’s assistant, had the clearest view and because of this partial sighting by an official, the FA state they cannot make any other decisions based on that tackle. According to FA spokesman Darren Bailey, a deal made with stake-holders that included players and managers at the beginning of the season asked that incidents seen by the officials during the game should not be re-refereed. In short, that now means that the FA are powerless to act, which confused me because isn’t that what they do when they’re rescinding red cards?

I think it’s great that the FA takes into consideration ideas, thoughts and feelings from others about the advancement of the game. But they are the sport’s governing body and any final decision made should be down to them. I feel in this instance they should have made the call to ban McManaman for at least three games because they have a duty of care to all involved in the game and its future growth.

How does a coach at any level explain to their players how an incident like this can go unpunished?

And how does a referee now look at decision-making? Especially as everyone is quick to question why the incident was missed in the first place?

And what about McManaman? Had he been red-carded for the offence, retrospectively or otherwise, the incident would be over and he would have learnt a valuable lesson – and others given a firm message.

Now, however, he’s not only the source of a lot of negative press but in forthcoming games he’ll no doubt be targeted by negative fans’ emotion.
All this could have been avoided.

According to sources, McManaman is distraught over the incident and all we can hope is that Haidara recovers quickly and fully.

We can also only hope that the FA’s outdated piece of legislation is looked at and changed to fit the purpose of making the game safer.