Wednesday night saw Didier Drogba make a choice that will probably hamper his goal to get back into the Chelsea first team. Due to the outstanding form of Nicholas Anelka, and injury this season, Drogba has hardly featured for the new look Blue’s under Phil Scolari. Given the chance to get some much needed match time against Burnley in the Carling Cup, Drogba seemed to have taken his chance with relish, scoring a tidy finish against the Championship team.
Drogba then celebrated his goal in front of the away fans, causing a small minority to respond to this, throwing coins down towards him on the pitch. Drogba responded to this by giving a single finger gesture and then threw a coin back into the crowd. It is because of this action that Drogba has been charged with violent conduct by the FA, with a hearing planned for Tuesday. He has until Monday evening to respond to these charges.
First of all it is important to realise that both Drogba and the fans who threw the coins, are both equally wrong in their actions. We live in a supposedly civilised world and if you were walking down the street with your sister or mother you would not expect anyone to throw anything at you, you would not even consider it a possibility. My question is this then, why do some football fans, and unfortunately they probably are fans, find that once they get inside a stadium the normal rules of society don’t extend that far, that they can do what they want. A few years back the AC Milan keeper, Dida, got hit by a flare from the crowd, this year a referees assistant got hit by a coin in the head, supposedly intended for Harry Redknapp. These actions clearly need to be stamped out of football. The question is how?
An FA spokesman has said that, “The FA wants anyone found guilty of throwing missiles to face the strongest possible action. That includes life bans from attending football matches." This is a highly encouraging sign from the FA that they acknowledge that any missile from the crowd is unacceptable and that the people doing this have no right to be anywhere need a football ground. The problem is how do you police this? Surely with all the CCTV cameras and stewards in modern grounds today it must be plausible to expect some of the perpetrators of these actions to be identified? But, for whatever reason, this does not seem to happen, or at least, does not happen within the public eye. This is something that the FA, the police and the grounds need to work on together to ensure these people are identified and banned from grounds for life.
This leaves Mr Drogba carrying the can on this coming Tuesday as he was the only individual identifield that evening. Drogba has only himself to blame in this matter and his actions are inexcusable. Even in the heat of the moment one must realise that throwing a coin towards a group of people is a stupid idea at best and it is right that Drogba gets punished for this action. What is equally important is that the people who throw the coins onto the pitch are found and named and shamed as well, so that others are aware of the repercussions of such acts and will hopefully be more inclined to save their spare change for a half time pie.
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What also seems to have been overlooked in this incident is that Droga gave a middle finger salute to the crowd. This seems to have been overlooked and is equally unacceptable. But then I have great sympathy for footballers, yes they get great pay, but they take dogs abuse.
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