Originally Posted by Jason C:
“No I don't, truth be told; I just find it hard to believe that the FA took mitigating factors into account and still thought the offence deserved such a sizeable ban of four matches.
If that did, happen, though - implying that a normal ban for this offence would have been in the region of half a dozen games - then I think it's an overreaction to the scale of the offence and one that has its grounding in other factors.”
That's your opinion, but not one I share. If he'd posted it the same day that we all became aware of it then I don't think a longer ban would have been unreasonable.
Originally Posted by Jason C:
“I don't agree, I think it's absolutely relevant - if, in this instance, the offensive comments were only discovered as the result of a Liverpool fan trawling through Andre Gray's tweets to find something he could publicise and send to the FA in retribution for the goal he scored which beat the side he supports.
We can't be having situations where disciplinary matters are created purely as a result of fan intervention, particularly for that reason.”
If players haven't posted anything wrong then they've got nothing to worry about. I would imagine very few have ever put anything as extreme as what Gray did on their public social media accounts so there won't be much to dig up. The vast majority of footballers seem very mundane and uncontroversial in what they post.
As for the bit in bold, wasn't John Terry's racist language only brought to light due to a complaint from a member of the public? And was his motive questioned? Yes the Gray thing may well have only come to light through a disgruntled Liverpool fan but that's not a reason to disregard it. If he hadn't done it in the first place it wouldn't be an issue. It's not like Gray's offence has been manufactured by someone else.
Originally Posted by Jason C:
“And that's what I mean when I say that Gray's suspension had a grounding in other factors, namely that discrimination is the current hot button issue in football at the moment and the FA had to be seen to be taking a firm line over it.
Whether the punishment actually fitted the crime seems to be of little consequence.”
Punishments tend to have a deterrent element to them. As for fitting the crime I think it does personally. Burnley and Gray aren't appealing it so you would assume it's not completely out of proportion with what they were expecting.