Watford captain Sissoko handed three-match ban by FA.
Watford captain Moussa Sissoko has been handed a three-game ban for violent conduct in an incident not seen by the officials during the win over Blackburn Rovers at Vicarage Road on Saturday.
Although not shown a card during the game, Sissoko was reported to referee Darren England by Blackburn skipper Lewis Travis during the first half for an alleged head-butt.
The match officials did not see the incident and so Mr England could not include it directly in his match report, but he referenced what Travis had told him in the section which allows referees to supply any additional information.
The FA then studied video of the alleged incident, which is understood to show Sissoko – who denied the charge – pushing his head towards Travis.
As a result, the FA have retrospectively handed Sissoko a three-match ban – the same as he would have received had Mr England seen it and shown a red card for violent conduct.
Sissoko will now miss tomorrow’s game at Sheffield Wednesday, the trip to Swansea on Tuesday and the home game with Oxford United next Friday night.
The former French international has never been a shown a straight red during his career, but has been sent off for picking up two yellows on three occasions – twice for Newcastle in 2014/15 and once for Marseille in 2011/12.
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Although no defence for what Sissoko did, Watford would have every right to feel aggrieved at inconsistencies in the speed with which the FA handle different types of offence.
That’s because they were beaten at Deepdale on October 2 by a Preston team that included striker Milutin Osmajic, who scored two of the goals in the 3-0 defeat but was subsequently banned for eight games for an offence that had occurred more than a week earlier.
Osmajic was accused of biting Blackburn Rovers’ Owen Beck amid a scuffle late in the 0-0 draw at Deepdale on September 22 – a match shown live on Sky Sports, who aired numerous replays of the incident from multiple angles.
On the day, referee Matthew Donohue showed Osmajic a yellow card, and it was only when Beck went to the officials’ changing room after the game that further discussion of the incident took place.
Donohue, and his assistant, Matthew Jones, both told the FA in written submissions they did not see the incident at the time, but had seen a bite mark on Beck’s shoulder in the dressing room after the game.
Osmajic was charged by the FA with violent conduct in a letter dated September 25.
However, he then played in Preston’s 3-1 defeat at Millwall on September 28.
The Montenegrin international accepted the FA charge in a letter dated September 30, but was still free to play – and score – against Watford three days later.
Then on October 3, two days after the Hornets had been beaten by Preston, a three-man FA Independent Regulatory panel handed Osmajic an eight-game ban and fined him £15,000.
In a statement given to the FA panel by Osmajic, the forward said: “I did not think that I had bitten Owen Beck as I had no intention of doing so.”
The panel did not believe that explanation, noting that “the Commission witnessed an individual who not only knew what he was doing, biting is a deliberate act, but proactively sought to bite Owen Beck in a manner that would be hidden from the view of the match officials”.
It took 11 days from the date of the offence for the FA to complete their investigations and decide upon on the severity on the punishment, during which period Osmajic played in two matches.
However, on this occasion, the Hornets have seen the FA study evidence and hand out a ban to their captain in the space of six days.
It seems that the Osmajic incident was dealt with using the FA’s Fastrack 2 – a longer process which is invoked when the act and likely sanction is dealing with something where evidence needs gathering and falls outside something which would be sanctionable with the usual three-game ban for a red card.
The Sissoko punishment was for an act that would be punished by a ‘standard’ red card and three-game suspension, and therefore came under Fastrack 1 which means it was dealt with in a shorter timeframe.
Nonetheless, the fact remains a player who bit an opponent was able to play on for two games while another who butted someone was immediately banned because of the different timeframes the FA use.
