Eduardo Charged: Why Does Everything Bad Happen To Me, Asks Gooner!

Eduardo has been charged by UEFA for his alleged dive against Celtic in the UEFA Champions League, which means now the UEFA control and disciplinary body will examine the case on September first.

As a First Year Law Student, I am tempted to talk about how, according to Article 10, there must be “obvious intent to cause any match official to make an incorrect decision,” which is nearly impossible to prove. The Article also states that a player is guilty if he supports the referee’s “error of judgment.” Can’t anything short of a player going up to the referee, and telling him, “There was no contact, Ref!” count as supporting the referee’s error of judgment?

But I will not dwell on the law that governs this situation; rather, I will dwell on my sorrows and ask, as many Arsenal fans have; why does everything bad happen to me? In addition to our injury curse, our money woes, our big players leaving, now this? Granted, some of these are a result of how we prefer the club to be run…but not this.

First of all, it seems UEFA has the right to pick and choose which incidents they prosecute and which they allow. For example, when the overrated Ryan Babel dove, by all objective standards, against Arsenal in the year before last’s Champions League, UEFA was nowhere to be seen. The incident gave Liverpool a decisive penalty, and earned Kolo Toure a yellow card. And during the same week, the same series against Liverpool, Arsenal also had two objectively clear penalties ruled non-penalties, one of which earned Aliaksandr Hleb a yellow card for, you guessed it, diving.

Of course there was no sanctioning of the match official. There was no UEFA statement. There was no apology, and by and large, a few days to a couple of months later, even Arsenal fans stopped complaining about it. After all, we had to take responsibility for scoring four goals, including Theo’s amazing run and assist, and still allowing Liverpool to catch up.

Per se, taking a stand against diving is a good thing. But UEFA must announce such action before it is taken, at least issue a statement stating that starting now, all divers will be disciplined. It is unfair to pick on Babel, when there are people like Ronaldo around, but the fact of the matter is many players cause officials to make mistaken decisions, and most will support an official’s “error of judgment” if it means a call going their way. There must be a rule that decides when UEFA will get involved and when it will not. If every single diver in the Champions League gets this treatment from now on, it will have been worthwhile and I will not say a bad word about this decision. If not, who does UEFA answer to?

In the meantime, my coping mechanism with this and all other problems we face as fans of Arsenal Football club is simple. I tell myself, “In the end, after this season is over, and after adding a trophy or two to the Emirates’ empty trophy cabinet, we will be able to tell our fellow Top Four teams, plus Liverpool and Man City, that we did it despite all attempts, by persons or by luck, to derail us.”