Tactically, you have to read the file like a match. Raul Florucz, Union’s striker, got a red card in the 39th minute of a friendly against Lokeren, played during the break. A friendly. The federal prosecutor asked for two matches. The Disciplinary Committee brought that down to one. Union appealed, and the Disciplinary Council cleared him. He plays Sunday against Leuven.
Three bodies for a warm-up game. Me, my August friendlies in the third provincial division (Belgium’s Sunday amateur leagues), I play them on pitch 2, the sloping one, and the only disciplinary body is the club delegate with his folder. If he’s forgotten the folder, there was no match.
What interests me is the hearing. The referee, Mathias Matthijs, said he only saw the incident out of the corner of his eye and wasn’t sure where exactly the contact was made. Florucz explained he was trying to get away from Sam Van Aerschot, who was holding him. And the video footage couldn’t establish that he had deliberately struck anyone. Video footage, for a friendly. Where I am, video is the goalkeeper’s mum filming from the bar, and she stops when she goes to fetch a cone of chips.
Getting away from a player who’s holding you, I run that on Tuesday. When we’ve got eleven, that is. The block shifts, the striker steps back, you don’t let the hands wander. That’s collective work, that.
What I take from it is the three-step procedure: a request, a reduction, an acquittal. That’s a promotion play-off, no more, no less. The level of the disciplinary bodies has gone way up, people don’t realise.
Three courts for a game with nothing at stake. I’m not criticising. I’m comparing.
As for Sam Van Aerschot, also sent off that day, nothing has been decided yet: he got three matches in the first instance.
It’s true, we checked: Walfoot.
