Blathering Blatter wrong over Taylor tackle on Eduardo...

Sepp Blatter went on the offensive earlier this week stating that those who 'deliberately' go out to harm opponents should receive longer bans when players like Arsenal's Eduardo are on the end of career threatening tackles. Immediately after the game that ended with the Croatian striker being rushed to hospital, an emotional Arsene Wenger called for a life-ban for Martin Taylor who had committed the foul, however, the Arsenal manager later retracted that statement when saying he had himself gone over the top when giving his damning judgement on the future of the Birmingham defender.

However, Blatter has reignited the debate on career threatening tackles, the FIFA president has often courted controversy with his forthright views on issues which affect the world game. The big problem with this latest threat is who decides when a player has deliberately gone out to injure an opponent? Take the example of Martin Taylor, most 'expert pundits' have agreed that Taylor's tackle on Eduardo was clumsy rather than malicious.

Call it badly timed, or clumsy no one wants to see a repeat of the type of injuries sustained by the unfortunate Eduardo who could be out for up to 15 long months. But while Blatter will have gained widespread support from the supporters over his staunch opposition to the Premier League's controversial 39th money-grabbing game proposal, the FIFA president will have bewildered fans in equal measure over this latest unworkable threat to dish out extra punishment for those who have been adjudged to have been guilty of reckless tackling.

There is an argument which suggests that players do need some form of greater protection if injuries such as the one sustained by Eduardo are to be avoided in the future, but as supporters will testify, even with the aid of TV replays on too many occasions the FA et al cannot be trusted to get decisions 100% right, and going down the path of issuing lengthy bans for clumsy challenges will only lead to yet more controversy, it is unlikely to solve the problem. For this reason, no doubting many supporters will be hoping that common sense prevails and that this latest edict will be consigned to the seemingly ever growing Blatter junk-pile along with some his previous bad ideas like the "golden" and "silver" goals.