Etienne Capoue red card arbitration.

Discussion in 'The Hornets' Nest - Watford Chat' started by Sahorn, Dec 6, 2018.

  1. Sahorn

    Sahorn Reservist

    So we appealed Copoue’s red card vs Man City first thing Monday.

    The Regulatory Commission panel upholds the refs decision but only on Tuesday just to help mess up team selection for the Tuesday night game.

    Duxbury issues a statement saying we are unhappy with the ruling “which nearly everyone considers to be an error” and WFC are going to Arbitration by the only means possible to challenge the decision under Rule K of the Football Association Rules. (Presumably on the grounds of ‘irrationality’ in subsection 1(d) )!

    Apparently Arbitration isn’t often (ever?) used in cases of ‘unjust’ or ‘unfair’ red cards against the mighty FA.

    Anyone with any itk knowledge on progress or background on this process?
    The clock is ticking and soon we will have played 3 games and Arbitration will be irrelevant. (The FA backstop plan)!
     
  2. ITK platypus

    ITK platypus Squad Player

    #justiceforcapoue
     
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  3. Oscar calling

    Oscar calling Squad Player

    The Arbitration panel will probably add on another couple of games suspension for us making a "frivolous" appeal.
     
    wfc4ever likes this.
  4. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    For all The FA's faults, I don't think they can really be blamed for messing up team selection on Tuesday. As it stood, Capoue was suspended and Gracia will have been setting up the team on that basis, as opposed to setting up for it to be overturned. Had to deal with the circumstances we were in at that time surely?

    Really not sure its worth the club pursuing this to be honest as it seems doomed to fail and push us further into the bad books of The FA in my opinion.
     
  5. Cassetti's Beard

    Cassetti's Beard First Team

    Regulatory Commission panel? Rule K of the Football Association Rules? Arbitration panel?
     
  6. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    We would have won if it wasn't for the FA.
     
    Burnsy likes this.
  7. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    Anyone else think that winding up the FA by challenging them will come back to bite us on the bum in the future ?? We are already seen as a nuisance due to the loans, foreign managers, everton issue etc. It might just be easier for them to find a reason to relegate us than deal with all our s*** !
     
    Ray Knight likes this.
  8. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    They'll probably bring up Troy's comments that we go out to deliberately target players...

    And now its cold and wet Capoue might be rubbish anyway.
     
    Ray Knight likes this.
  9. hornetboy1

    hornetboy1 First Team Captain

    They can't f*** us over more than they already do, so no I don't think it will make any difference to anything. With regards to our relationship with the FA, it will be business as usual.

    I believe the arbitration is set to look at this after the Cardiff match.
     
    The undeniable truth likes this.
  10. Sahorn

    Sahorn Reservist

    See Scott Duxbury’s quote.
    Check them FA Rules.
     
  11. GoingDown

    GoingDown "The Stability"

    'I object'
    'Overruled'
    'Ok I strenuously object!'
    'Well, in that case....'
     
    Glenhorn likes this.
  12. BusheyOrn

    BusheyOrn Reservist

    By the time we get a response he will have served at least 2 of the games if not all 3 matches!
     
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  13. Screw it. I hope they keep challenging every dodgy act or decision against us.

    No other teams seem to have the balls to stand up to them. Someone has to.

    Keep pushing the buttons for the smaller clubs. Keep niggling at them bit by bit.

    Keep letting them know we aren't going away and will continue to poke them on each point.

    Keep getting these issues into the media so the refs start fearing decisions against us as well.

    At some point a ref is going to look a a decision involving us and think, "bloody hell it's Watford, better get this one right or I'll be back page news". And hopefully it'll start to turn. Decisions will go more 50/50.

    Maybe anyway. Whatever. I'm happy we continue to be a thorn in the FAs side just to piss them off.
     
  14. Ray Knight

    Ray Knight First Year Pro

    Idealism is a terrible thing! The FA have no conceptions of fairness and natural justice. We are just in the EPL to make up the numbers and to be compared against the mighty. Unfortunately it's the hope that kills...
     
  15. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    The fact that some fans believe the FA are against us is quite beyond parody and has no logic as to why. Complaining about it makes us look silly really.
     
  16. I don't believe... well I don't think that they're against us. Just that some decisions, consciously or not, do seem to favour bigger teams more often than not.

    Law of averages statistically seems to go with the bigger teams, correctly or not.
     
  17. Sahorn

    Sahorn Reservist

    I think both these views are right.
    If it was Dr Bruyne's or Pogba' s tackle it would have had reams of media debate and the FA would be in the spotlight.

    a) The ref probably wouldn't have sent him off in the first place.
    b) If he was sent off I believe it would have been overturned and this would have been done on the Monday after the game, not wait til Tuesday.
    c) If the original decision had been upheld, the FA wouldn't be dragging their heels on the Arbitration because of the media pressure. (They're still in a state of shock the decision has been challenged). A decision would have been made by now.

    But it's Watford, there's no media coverage and no pressure. The FA will take their time on Arbitration and if we're lucky they will convene before the 3rd game that Capoue will be missing.

    But I'm not holding my breath because it'll be convenient for it all to be be quietly forgotten as far as the FA are concerned.
    "We tried to get an Arbitration Panel together before Watford' s Cardiff game but people weren't available and now it's too late. Sorry."

    That's my conspiracy theory.
    The FA don't want any bad publicity and this will be their best strategy to sweep it under the carpet.
     
  18. hornetboy1

    hornetboy1 First Team Captain

    We will be able to gauge how upset the FA are with us by the next refereeing appoint. They could assign Michael Oliver, which would be the ultimate sanction.
     
  19. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    Bit too tin foil hatty I think.

    a) Possibly, that's where the real big club bias exists and we can only hope VAR irons it out.

    b) It's a panel of 3 former refs who decide independently of each other and they all have to agree to overturn it. The club's statement implies possibly one or two agreed to overturn but as it wasn't unanimous the red card stood. And Gracia said the club expected to hear on Monday evening. That they didn't put out a statement until Tuesday - presumably because they were taking advice on the next step - doesn't mean the club didn't know sooner.

    c) Arbitration panels always take a while to set up. It's basically legal action just short of going to court. It's not designed as a quick process. (They have 119 days for a hearing to take place according to the FA regulations). There used to be a time where suspensions were put on hold while appeals processes were underway, but then some clubs took the piss and put in spurious appeals to manipulate which games their player would miss. Though we've gone a step beyond that in asking for arbitration. I can't think of a club doing that before. I actually wonder if we're going after the Capoue red card specifically or maybe, if it happened, the inherent unfairness of a system that means 2 out of 3 former refs can say it should be overturned but no majority vote is allowed.

    Out of interest, what bad publicity do you think the FA would get?
     
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2018
  20. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Interview with Capoue in the Times I am lead to believe ?
     
  21. Sahorn

    Sahorn Reservist

    None from the national media, but I expect a full investigative expose to be conducted by the Wobby including analysis of similar incidents over the years showing how red cards ‘erroneously’ given by referees to players of big clubs were overturned on appeal.

    And yes, I’m very proud of my hat -> my family watching Watford live on’t telly against the big six: :D
    https://goo.gl/images/bjcJLf
     
  22. t’s just after lunch at Watford’s training ground and Étienne Capoue and Will Hughes are engaged in a game of pool where the verbal exchanges are as lively as the potting. “He’s the best player I’ve ever played with . . . at pool,” Hughes says with a smile.

    Hughes emphasises his admiration for Capoue the footballer, such a force for Javi Gracia’s side, which is why the club have been fighting so hard against his controversial suspension for a challenge on Leicester City’s Kelechi Iheanacho.

    Capoue appreciates Watford’s attempt to find him justice. “Watford are a very friendly club,” he says. “It’s a family, yes. It has a very good vibe here. When I signed from Tottenham [in 2015], my first feeling was that they all want to take care of me, the staff, the president and directors, everyone. They took me as a son.

    “They are behind me. They push you in the right way. They’re not just buying you and saying, ‘Now do your job and if you don’t . . . ’ If they buy you, it means they trust you, and that’s good for a player’s confidence.”

    He loves the backing of the fans voiced in their chant: “He’s Javi’s man; he’s better than Zidane.” “This is the Watford spirit,” he says. “When I was at Tottenham, it was completely different. It was about winning every game. Tottenham are a big club so they ask a lot, a lot, a lot. Here we make a step up every year. The club are buying good players every year, the team are growing up, the staff as well, the facilities.”

    He mentions Arsenal, famous neighbours 100 yards away over the well-tended hedge at London Colney. “It is a different world but we know where we are, who we are and what we can achieve,” he says. “Everyone in England, and in the world, talks about the top six in the Premier League, so we are always hungry and it is good for us to show against these teams that we have quality as well.”

    On Monday, Watford face Everton and their manager Marco Silva, whose departure from Vicarage Road is still a source of rancour. Capoue fell out with Silva shortly after the new manager arrived in pre-season in 2017, arguing after a defeat by Rangers behind closed doors. “We argued but there are arguments in every club in the world, and that was it, finished. I still worked hard, even when he didn’t play me. It’s life. Sometimes you don’t choose your destiny. When something happens you need to say, ‘Come on, just work,’ and every time I went home, I knew I’d done my best. He was strict.”

    He now flourishes under Silva’s successor, the highly regarded Gracia. “The new coach is strict as well but he’s more subtle; strict but more with finesse,” he says. “He knows tactics, of course, but his man-management is good too. He talks to everybody. He can read people’s mood.”

    Gracia was aware of Capoue’s journey, starting in Niort, near Nantes. His mother is French while his father hails from the French overseas region of Guadeloupe. “How did my parents meet? A nice question. My dad’s Caribbean so he came to France at 18 for the army and my mum was 18, in high school, and there was a party, and they saw each other . . .

    “We didn’t have big money as a family. My parents worked very hard to support us. We are three brothers [including Aurelien, formerly of Nantes, Auxerre and Guadeloupe] but we had boots, kit, it was a normal childhood.

    “I started playing first on the road outside my house. We drew a pitch on the road with big rocks, white lines, it was crazy but it was so nice. Every time cars came I picked up the cones we used for goals so the car could pass — ‘OK, go’ — and after that we carried on playing.
     
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  23. “Football was important but my parents always said, ‘Education first. With education you’re going to do something in your life.’ I stopped school at 17 because I was so focused on football, and signed professional at 18 [at Toulouse]. For me it was only football. I took my chance.

    “I was actually a No 10 when I was younger. I grew up watching Zidane. But they [the Toulouse coaches] said, ‘You’re too slow, come back here, you can read the game, so it’s better for you to play here.’ ”

    Operating in midfield for Toulouse, stretching out his long legs to win the ball, Capoue was nicknamed “Tentaculaire” by his team-mate André-Pierre Gignac.

    “Once someone gives you a nickname, it means you’re doing something bad or good, and I was doing well,” he says. “The nickname was good for me, for my confidence, and I kept this name a long time in France. It is my best position, I am born in this position in Toulouse. The new coach [Gracia] knew me since I was in Toulouse, so he knew I could do a very good performance in my real position. So when he asked, it was natural for me to drop and read the game, do some interceptions, tackles and give the ball to others.” He lets others shine. “I like to be in the shadows.”

    Yet the skill is there, as shown when the seven-times French international spun on the touchline at Vicarage Road in 2015 and nutmegged Manchester United’s Jesse Lingard. “Yes, I have the skills,” he says. “Maybe once per game, you see the skill. To do more skills is for top players. I am very focused defensively.”

    He was focused on the ball when challenging Iheanacho last weekend, but slipping. Watford’s chairman, Scott Duxbury, was so angered by the referee Graham Scott’s decision to send Capoue off — “everyone could see it was an error” — that the club appealed, and then took the rare step of a second appeal of the arbitration verdict essentially on the grounds of “irrationality”.

    Capoue is quite sanguine. “The referee saw two feet [making contact with the ball, deemed to “endanger” Iheanacho] but I was in control first, I got the ball, and I just slipped.” He was surprised that Scott dismissed him, partly as Iheanacho said that there was no contact. “I will never know why I was banned but, no, I don’t feel frustration.’’

    Simply acceptance. “Everything happens for a reason. If I got this red card, it is for a reason. It’s bad for me but it is good for another player, who can show what he can do. If he does well, it’s good for the team and also better for me.” Why? “Because I need to push myself.” It’s all very altruistic, perhaps not surprising given Capoue’s belief in a higher power. “I’m very religious,” he says. “I’m Catholic. I pray before matches, yes. I read the Bible. It explains everything, it gives you the way, but you must understand it in your way. That’s important.”

    His sangfroid also stems from time’s maturing process. “I am growing up, and having kids changes you straight away. It’s good for me. Football asks a lot of you, every day, of your mind. The kids help me relax. When I’ve been injured, and got home, the kids don’t care about this. I look at them, and think, ‘Come on, OK, I’m injured, but look at them.’ This feeling is priceless.”
     
  24. For someone so chatty and friendly, and clearly hugely popular, Capoue keeps a low profile. “I don’t have social media. I don’t like interviews. I don’t want pictures. I’m very, very quiet about football. I just train and play and go home because, for me, life is home. This is my job. I don’t have friends in football, one or two, not friends like my friends from childhood. All my friends play basketball, not in top league, but fifth league and work in normal jobs.”

    Capoue’s passion is basketball, first following the Chicago Bulls when Michael Jordan was flying high, then the Miami Heat with Dwyane Wade and LeBron James when Capoue would even travel to Miami to watch and admire. James is now with the LA Lakers, and still obsessing Capoue. So which sport does he love more, basketball or football?

    “Oh, hard question,” he says. “I watch basketball every night. Football I don’t.

    “I like football, I was born into football, I play football, it is my job. But I love basketball so much. I used to go to Miami for the [NBA] play-offs. It was crazy. I was like a kid at Christmas. I enjoyed every minute there. It is the big intensity of the games: they are machines but they run like small guys.”

    He admires the way James uses his fame and fortune to help others with his foundation. “LeBron is good on the basketball court and doing great things outside as well.”

    A deep thinker about society, as well as sport, Capoue notes sport’s classless nature. “Sport’s good because it gives a chance to everybody,” he says. “In America, you need to get money to be a doctor, you need to have money to be a lawyer, but in sports you don’t need money. Sport is a democracy.”

    We talk politics, turning from the tensions in the United States to here in the land of Brexit. “It will be very sad,” Capoue says of Brexit. “It’s crazy. We don’t know who chose this, who makes the rules, and if they do it, is it just for their interests? It will damage the Premier League for sure. They want to shut down to 13 [non-homegrown] players [from 17]. Most of the best players are not English in the Premier League so if the clubs have to choose only 13 it will be very difficult for the top teams. There will be fewer top, top clubs. Now it is a top six, but after [Brexit] not so many.”

    He finds the English very welcoming, but adds a small caveat. “The people are very friendly, yes, but because we have the tag of ‘footballer’ and people love football. So it is normal they come to us and they are already nice.

    “I’ve never had any problem with any English people, only with Arsenal people when I was at Tottenham. In a good way. It was funny.”

    The pool game with Hughes beckons, but he briefly considers what he will do when he retires “No, no, not a manager,” he says. “Manager is a very hard job. Maybe I will get a season ticket to the NBA. But I would like to do something in football, I can help the young guys, teaching them about life.”
     
  25. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    They clearly fast tracked it:

    From the club's official Twitter feed.
     
  26. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    Arbitration done.

    3 game ban upheld. Club say they remain disappointed at decision and process but consider the matter closed.

    Always felt like a fruitless effort to me. No doubt people will still think it’s a vendetta against us though!
     
    wfc4ever likes this.
  27. hornetboy1

    hornetboy1 First Team Captain

    Wrong decision upheld. No surprise there.
     
    wfcmoog likes this.
  28. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member


    Well almost would have been pointless for it to be heard after the Everton game I guess.

    Probably lucky he wasn't given an extra game ban for a frivolous appeal.
     
  29. GoingDown

    GoingDown "The Stability"

    Indeed. Waste of time and has made us look like cry babies. Which we are.
     
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  30. Sahorn

    Sahorn Reservist

    I'm sure a lot of thought went into the decision to appeal and no, we are not cry babies, that's ridiculous.
    So you think any challenge to the the FA is a waste of time?
    Do you roll over and let people tickle your tummy?
    I'm very happy the club took it as far as they could.
    Watford quite rightly challenged the FA and I'm happy we are not a bunch of sycophants which is the path you seem to endorse.
     
    Davidmsawyer likes this.
  31. Bahrain Hornet

    Bahrain Hornet Academy Graduate

    At least they never tagged an extra game on for have the audacity to complain!


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
     
  32. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    As a club, maybe we aren’t a bunch of complainers about the FA, refereeing etc...
    But as fans....
     
  33. WillisWasTheWorst

    WillisWasTheWorst Its making less grammar mistake's thats important

    The test will come next season. Will a tackle like the Capoue one still be judged as a red card under VAR?
     
  34. Jumbolina

    Jumbolina First Team

    I don’t mind the decision but I’m fairly sure there will be an identical challenge by a top 6 midfielder (2 foot but both feet down on the ball) which passes without comment because it was so innocuous. Huddersfield (Mounie v Brighton) and Watford get stiffed. Kompany and Fellaini can make far more dangerous challenges and nobody bats an eyelid.

    HB1 is correct. The refs don’t want the scutiny of sending off a “star” so the unconscious bias keeps going. It’s not anti Watford sentiment. However the refs are cowards at the end of the day and know the media ramifications of their decisions.
     
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  35. The Voice of Reason

    The Voice of Reason First Team Captain

    I should think not, as it was them who had the audacity to uphold the ban IMO :mad:
     

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