Arsenal News 24/7Writer: Amos 
Date:Monday September 14 2009
Time: 6:51PM
UK time is: 17:10:43
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Eduardo is innocent! Official
Having hastily judged Eduardo against the protestations of the match referee and decided to ban him for 2 matches for 'intending to deceive the referee', who had claimed he wasn't deceived, Uefa have had to climb down and admit that they were wrong to do so.
The decision, described as the consequence of a 'perfunctory and apparently arbitrary process' by the club was controversial at best. In an official statement following receipt of Uefa's explanation for their decision the club stated: "We strongly believe that the decision taken is deeply flawed and not based on any forensic review of the video evidence available.
There are obvious errors and inconsistencies in Uefa`s judgment"
The club announced it's intention to appeal on Eduardo's behalf which was accepted by Uefa. Their statement concluded:
Following examination of all the evidence, notably the declarations of both the referee and the referees' assessor, as well as the various video footage, it was not established to the panel's satisfaction that the referee had been deceived in taking his decision on the penalty.
So justice appears to have been done but a more considered approach might have avoided Uefa's blushes. The video footage shown on TV seemed to show that from an angle from the touchline there wasn't any clear contact. Another angle, that of the referee, distributed widely on the internet, showed that at the very least there was some contact. Responding so quickly to media indignation without first considering all available evidence was a poor mistake by Uefa's disciplinary committee.
In between the decisions Eduardo was obliged to endure the boos of England supporters throughout the recent world cup qualifying game. However, being a model professional, he didn't mock the English supporters by elaborately celebrating his goal against them or rake his studs down the side of Rooney's face.
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Your Comments
I love you Amos.
Rocky7
I love you too but I love Edu more, he's such a classy model professional: http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/eduardo-we-have-finally-arrived-at-the-truth
GoonerLou
GoonerLou is Amos? Who knew! I'm extatic with this news, however the damage is already done. The 2 match ban wouldn't really have affected us from a personelle stand point, but Eduardo has been tarnished now ... ok it was partly his own fault, but the massive over-reaction has him labeled as a cheat for his (as far as I can tell) first misdemeanour.
Rocky7
im soo happy with this decision! not only has it vindicated my complete and utter belief in the integrity of eduardo, its also shown the sham kangeroo court justice of uefa. The main reason i believe for their uturn has to be the huge can of worms they opened up with this victimization. And besides the media agenda served it purpose in deflecting the attention away from the horrendous scenes at upton park the previous night, which no one has evewn mentioned since.......
Lloydytron
so now does that mean all the people who labeled him a cheat will retract that statement,because he is innocent.....
fran merida
Damage done indeed Rocky. But I wouldn't under-estimate the psychological boost this has on Edu himself and the team. They'll feel at least some justice is done and can stand up to the booing fans with their heads held up high. As the boss said, Edu has overcome much bigger hurdles in his life than this. He's an incredibly tough guy, he'll march on and keep scoring!!
GoonerLou
Er Rocky I meant 'I love you too Amos but I love Edu more...'
GoonerLou
It's good news and as Lou says credit to Eduardo for showing that sometimes, simply keeping your mouth shut can say a great deal about you. I can think of other players who would benefit from that lesson.
Amos.
Fran - I wouldn't say he's innocent, he did take a tumble, but at least he is being treated fairly now. There was no reason for him to be dumped upon by all those people for one mistake.
Rocky7
"Following examination of all the evidence" Are they having a bubble? surely you check all the evidence before you go slinging around 2 match bans? UEFA are a joke, they have messed this case up so badly that its done more harm than good in the war against divers.
iceman10
Spot on iceman. Their haste to punish Eduardo, despite the referee's insistence that he had seen contact, and before being 100% sure of all the evidence, has made them even more of a joke. Maybe the disciplinary commitee should be banned for 2 months for 'intending to deceive football supporters that they are even half competent'
Amos.
Muppets at UEFA have completely embarassed themselves again, no suprise when you have chief muppet Platini leading them. Did they think we wouldn't appeal and just accept their penalty?
bowiecokemirror
you have the nerve to call adebayor a cheat amongst other things and then this diving **** gets off from his 2 match ban ? - just shows that the powers that be look after the SKY 4 - cheating ****s
bluemooner_mcfc
BOWIECOCKMIRROR......EDUARDO ACCEPTED THE PENALTY WHEN THE DIVING **** WENT DOWN WITH NOBODY NEAR HIM.
bluemooner_mcfc
Still having trouble getting to grips with reality bluemooner? Eduardo's ban was cancelled because the club were able to show that there was contact. A view endorsed by the referee. If they weren't able to show that his ban would have been upheld. Difficult concept for you to grasp apparently.
Amos.
Moomintroll I told you yesterday to run along and play with the snork maiden. This is a thread in regards a euro ban, you're not in europe, back to moomin valley now.
iceman10
Citeh fans back to embarrass themselves again. It makes my day!
gunnerkid107
Why is this procession of angry, shouty, sugar sheikh stooges still occurring here? Jeez they won and this is how they behave?? I guess they have so much heritage of winning sod all, it's a natural instinct to carry on being mardy manc****s. They used to be such a happy go lucky bunch, now check their forum and it's chocka full of paranoia, bile and a mile wide inferiority complex. Money money money moneeh it's the root of all eeeviil.
nikolaijns
What a joke,is this a sympathy gesture for losing 4-2 and the poor fans being upset by Ade
humpty
don't be a numpty humpty, as it's an entirely separate football governing body I guess that leaves you with egg on your face.
nikolaijns
I presume that's sung in Horace Andy's tobaccoy rasp Niko? This whole process was a shambles from beginning to end. A bit like the F.A's charging of Fabregas post Hull. Why are the people charged with running the game such panicky *****ers?
Little Dutch
It's not really surprising that football and money has really gone to Adebayor's head .... look at the City fans, they have four positive results on the trott and all of a sudden they're billy big balls. Come see us at the end of the season feller .....
Rocky7
Sure is Dutch ;) Horace man whatta voice. What this shows is that the charge was brought under internal pressure that just couldn't withstand greater scrutiny. I personally would've had no problem with the ban stading IF it led to many other future incidents being retroactively punished. The idiots made their own bed when stating this was a one off punishment?? Why? Shambles.
nikolaijns
standing even.
nikolaijns
I think the vital network has posted a video on all the threads of what has happend to all the city fans since the money arrived......
iceman10
I agree he shouldn't be banned and fair play for rescinding it. If the ref had of caught the dive in game then he only would of had a yellow card. If they're gonna change the rules and say you get banned for it they should let people know first not just single out one player. It wasn't the most sporting thing to do but history shows it's at most a yellow card offence until they change the rules.
MCFC_Goatboy
rocky it was tongue in cheek,but in the eyes of uefa he is not guilty....
fran merida
Hi, Amos. Good article.
Justice is done. Eduardo didn't dive. He may have made the most of contact from Boruc, but he did NOT just hurl himself to the ground for no reason.
This is what he says: "..I headed towards goal at full speed. I was very close to the Celtic keeper and felt contact on my foot and then lost my balance. I know perhaps more than anyone else that when you have contact at speed it can be dangerous."
FunGunner
And also on the YouTube clip going around you can see his foot bounce off Boruc's thigh. That would be pretty difficult to fake, I think.
FunGunner
This may seem controversial, but I would rather have Eduardo banned for 2 games, but also have diving Shrek's banned (and tbf Eboue's too!) regularly throughout the season and not pulling Man Utd back into games on the 'free penalty for Rooney' rule. This retraction seems to be the cop-out I always knew it would be - as if they set this precedent it would have meant legal proceedings from Arsenal whenever the rule wasn't applied to someone else (along with every other club). Also it would have been yet another reason for a breakaway super league.
Englishman-in-NY
Few would really complain if there were some consistent process of reviewing instances of potential dives but even when dishing out their hasty punishment to Eduardo Uefa made it clear they had no intention of doing that. There have been instances where there was much less doubt than in Eduardo's case if Uefa really wanted to make a case. In setting this ball rolling and on the basis that AFC claim they were able to prove there was contact how likely are Uefa to take action against Boruc for intending to deceive the referee that there wasn't?
Amos.
Thrilled with this decision. Wenger showed balls in standing his ground, even with all the criticisms he got from some fellow managers and Ref Jeff Winter. Now, all he has to do is get into the heads of the lads and extract a response from them in the next two games, to set the tone for the rest of the season. Standard Liege are no push overs and Arsenal are away. Respect, Mr Wenger!!
Naijagunner
does this now mean the so called knowledgeable football experts, referees (Poll) and managers, (bigred nose) who slated Eduardo for cheating will now come forward and opologise ? Suppose hell will freeze over first.
alwaysgunner
now, i hope we all can move on and have some real football please.... no wait... let us do that after adebayor gets his verdict from FA
arseneknows
i'm not sure if this is intentionally ironic, but it hardly means he's innocent, it just means UEFA were to lazy to actually deal with the problem as a whole, and so let their sacrificial lamb dive another day.
Ozi Gooner
I would hazzard a guess that Amos was putting the opposite spin on this news than the media put on Eddie's dive in the first place.
Rocky7
Eduardo may or may not have been innocent of diving but that wasn't what he was charged with. The charge was intending to deceive the referee. The problem they had though was that the referee has insisted throughout that he wasn't deceived by Eduardo's dive. He thought the keeper had fouled the player even if he did 'go down easily'. Uefa have no intention of cracking down on diving or cheating 'unless it has a significant impact'. Singling Eduardo out as a cheat when there is no intention to seriously deal with the problem is unfair. The title to this article was with the intention of balancing the official identification of Eduardo as the only convicted cheat in the history of CL football. He is no more guilty than many others before him or others still to come.
Amos.
Anyone been to Vital Celtic to read their take on the decidion? Apparently ... we're pure filth ... lol - http://www.celtic.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=170311
Rocky7
Yes - it's a pretty abusive title which is repeated in the text. I am surprised the site editor is sanctioning it. Not that there is ever anyone there to take any notice mind.
Amos.
We sanctioned the Adebayor slags, so the holier than thou stuff is a little bit off here fellas. Whatever UEFA say, it does not vindicate Eduardo, he dived. It just makes UEFA look like the knobjockeys we all already knew they were.
Ozi Gooner
It was still a dive though. Dont fool yourself with the title. He cheated and in effect sealed the tie for you against Celtic. But he should never of been banned in the first place, unless your gonna start banning everybody for it. Im all for banning cheats, but you cant just sinbgle out Eduardo for it
HuddersfieldYiddo
I actually agree with you HY, a part from the seal the tie bit I don't think they were ever in it!
navydave
Unbelievable! UEFA have managed to tick everyone off with this case and have reinforced the general view that they are totally incapable of managing the European game. I have to say that Eduardo is an absolute gentleman in the way he conducts himself. He has had a short but turbulent time in the EPL (mostly from the English media) and I really hope that he manages put all this behind him.
Sir Henry
Where has all this 'Arsenal fans are racists' come from? I've been a gooner for over 25 years and never heard it before and definately never seen any evidence of it. I think some of these people need to look at the diversity and intergration of our area and fan base. This is really bothering me!
navydave
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cmpozcslIA
andycroat28
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTxl799Q2t4&feature=related
andycroat28
Whether it was a dive or not only Eduardo knows. As a player that has never been known to dive, I chose to believe him!
Paulsito
That's ******** awesome news! But I sort of hoped they may have clamped down on it more and been consistent, but as we all know they wouldn't, they didn't.
Tom14
At the very least Eduardo went down a bit too easily for any to feel too comfortable. In the context of the game in which you know you can be denied a stonewall penalty as often, or more so, than you are given a soft one there is only so much guilt you should feel about it. The problem wasn't that Uefa decided to take action, they should have done so much sooner, but that at the same time as they singled out Eduardo they made it clear that they wouldn't pursue any similar instances anymore vigorously than they had done in the past. If they don't have a policy for dealing with it and who gets punished and who doesn't is purely abitrary then the whole process is bound to cause more problems that it solves. If something should be done, and most will agree it should, then it should be done properly.
Amos.
Agree Amos, the problem isn't the fact they wanted to enforce what is at its heart a noble rule to enforce, the problem is they wanted to let the rule be pre-determined at a trial by media
Ozi Gooner
how is he possibly innocent you truelly are the worst/most blinkered fans in the premiership! everyone knows it was a dive and the fact uefa (who in your eyes must not make a mistake) say so doesnt take the fact away that it was a dive and was rightly punished to begin with then wrongly overturned!!! God bless Adebayor
steve bhoy
Try a litte reading stevie bhoy. Everyone agrees that it was probably a dive. Maybe a little more easily than you lot will agree McGeady dived in the game shortly after. But he wasn't charged with diving. Just with intentionally deceiving the ref. Uefa would have done anything not to see this overturned but video evidence was able to show that there was contact and if anyone was deceiving the ref it was Boruc in claiming there wasn't any. If a mistake was made it was by the ref., but he has insisted throughout that he saw a clear foul. Some go your way, some don't. Until they come up with something better there is little point crying about it.
Amos.
i aint crying i dont really care tbh cause we aint in the CL and mcgeady did dive but he rode a tackle
steve bhoy
Thats why we should defend our players, give him the benifit of the doubt, he said he didnt and has been deemed innocent. Why do we feel the need to keep saying what we think insteadof trusting what he said. It his foot that got touched while at full speed.
EDUARDO!
Paulsito
its not the first time he has done it but
steve bhoy
I'm not sure why all these Celtic fans can't get it through their skulls that we're not saying Eddie didn't dive .... we're just saying that it was unfair that he was singled about ia the media and then given a ban when UEFA made it clear nobody else would be. Yes he cheated, but it's only fair he is treated the same as the other cheats. If they're lift their knuckles off the floor for 2 minutes and pick up a few books to educate themselves they might one day understand!
Rocky7
**If they'd
Rocky7
God bless Adebayor!!! worst fans in the EPL you are the worst fans in the EPL
steve bhoy
oh no, looks like steve bhoy has abandoned all hopes of using logic to support his argument...
TPowell
like most scottish fans i've met!
navydave
When you're drunk you tend to repeat yourself...;-)
Gunnerman
We're the worst fans in the EPL ... oh no, how ever will we live with ourselves in the knowledge that a little cyber warrior has that baseless drunken opinion of us? I know that I am crushed and unsure how I'll make it through this difficult time.
Rocky7
You stevebhoy, remember this? "You should have gone to see U2, gone to see U2, you should have gone to see U2."
Little Dutch
Is about time
Omogusii
you remember this your going to win **** all going to win **** all,**** all!!! why dont you brag when you've won europes biggest prize
steve bhoy
You're bragging already steve ghirl and you've won **** all!
Amos.
a bit off topic here guys, but i just saw the squad for the trip to liege. and i can't understand one thing, why isn't Senderos there in the squad? we've losy djourou for the entire season and phillipe is logically the best cover we have for gallas and thomas. wenger also said that if he is still at the club after 31st august, he will considered for selection like any other player. he wasnt in the squad for the trip to manchester and he aint there for this game as well. i don't get it, how can silves get into the team ahead of him, any kind of injury to gallas or thomas and we'll be *****ed if we silves in place of phillipe..
luckys_10
Here's a very thoughtful reflection on the whole Eduardo diving saga: http://www.footballfancast.com/blog/arsenal/the-real-reasons-why-eduardos-ban-was-overturned/16696
Amos.
Luckys - match fitness, Senderos played in the reserves yesterday to try to regain it, then he can earn a place back in the squad over silvestre
bootoo
did any one saw the dive that earned zurich a penalty today against real madrid ! there u go Uefa show us u really want to stop diving not singling out dudu !
Gooner SA
I lol when a saw that dive,in the Zurich game, imo Uefa won't do anything about it, because it happens so much. imo Uefa bottled it!
hackneyval
i did hear that wenger told his team not to hug each other after they scored as he didnt want to be done for producing under age pornography. on a serious note UEFA wont do anything abt diving because its not an english club simples.
jljyid
That's the absurdity, and unfairness of the whole Eduardo issue. They don't have a policy for dealing with it at all - but nobody doubts that they should have.
Amos.
Jilyid, it was not UEFA who caused the media Frenzy it was more the media in the UK. I am not saying that UEFA are not biased but I think their hands were forced a little by the media one of their own.
Paulsito
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