EURO 2012 NEWS:FABIO CAPELLO has been forced to consider leaving Wayne Rooney out of his squad for Euro 2012 after Uefa's control and disciplinary body handed the England striker a three-match ban that will rule him out of the group stage of next summer's tournament in Poland and Ukraine.
The Football Association was stunned by the severity of the decision, having hoped Rooney might escape with the automatic one-match ban following his kick at the Montenegro defender Miodrag Dzudovic 17 minutes from the end of last Friday’s 2-2 draw in Podgorica. That show of petulance will cost the 25-year-old any involvement in the group section and Capello now faces a considerable dilemma over whether to omit his best player.
The FA has yet to determine whether or not it will appeal against the sanction. Instead, the FA’s legal teams are to scrutinise the written explanation, due to be faxed overnight, behind the decision before considering their next move. They have 72 hours from the dispatch of the reasoning to submit an appeal.
While it is understood the power to dismiss such a request as frivolous, and even increase a ban, is not written into Uefa’s statutes – unlike in the FA’s rules for the English domestic game – clarification of the regulations will be sought before the FA determines how to proceed.
“The FA await the full reasons from the disciplinary committee,” a spokesman said. “We will give full consideration to the decision internally before deciding on any response to Uefa.”
Uefa appears to have deemed the right-footed swipe at Dzudovic as an assault, allowing the disciplinary committee to increase the suspension upon viewing video evidence, and have clearly taken into account the one-game ban already served by Rooney in the qualifying group for yellow cards.
Rooney, along with Capello, had written to the governing body as part of the FA’s dossier of evidence pleading for leniency, and the referee, Wolfgang Stark, had indicated that the striker’s acceptance of the red card without protest should be taken into account. Yet those arguments appear to have fallen upon deaf ears, with the FA’s worst fears realised.
The prospect of omitting Rooney, acknowledged even by the management staff as one of England’s few world-class talents, would previously have been unthinkable to Capello. Yet the severity of the punishment has forced the England manager to contemplate whether a player even of Rooney’s stature and standing can be included in his squad when he can have no part to play in the group section.
The manager will liaise with the FA over the possibility of submitting an appeal and will not make any firm decision on Rooney’s involvement next summer until after the draw for the group stage is made in Kiev on December 2nd.
Capello had already indicated that he did not intend to select the forward for next month’s friendly against Spain, a fixture that will be followed by a visit from Sweden to Wembley three days later.
Former England striker Alan Shearer described the ban as “a huge blow” to England’s chances in the European Championships, and called the kick “a silly error”.
Shearer told BBC Radio 5 Live: “It’s a huge blow. It’s not only a huge blow to the team, to the fans and to football followers but to Wayne himself because he realises he’s made a stupid error.
“I still think whoever replaces him in the team, England still should have enough to get through the three games without him.”
Phil Neville, Rooney’s former team-mate for United and England, labelled the ruling “a joke”.
The Everton midfielder said on Twitter: “Rooney banned for 3 games what a joke – if it was a Dutch Spanish Italian german player they wouldn’t even get 1 game #fact.”
The FA had taken some hope from a previous case involving Andrey Arshavin, who was given a two-match ban and missed Russia’s first two games of Euro 2008 after being sent off against Andorra. But in that case television evidence was less clear cut than in Rooney’s.
In 2004, Chelsea’s Marcel Desailly was initially handed a three-match ban for elbowing Monaco’s Fernando Morientes but that was reduced on appeal to two games after Uefa said the act was not deliberate.
Guardian Service
