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Ashley Cole's horror tackle this week

I WAS at a function recently in the House of Lords - it was actually the annual dinner of the Parliamentary football team - and in the room was a good cross section of all parties, all level of MPs and many Lords and Ladies, who all had a common interest and love for the game of football.

I was introduced to Lord Triesman, who has recently been appointed the new independent chairman of the Football Association.

I found him to be very interesting, in so far as he was keen to look at all levels of the game, as opposed to concentrating on what happens in the Premiership.

He would have to say that anyway because, as I found out when I was working as manager of the England under-21 and B teams, there are not just the 92 clubs which week-in, week-out get all of the major publicity.

There are literally about 40,000 other clubs, some of whom have five or six teams, and they all form the solid basis of the pyramid with the 92 sitting on top.

Over recent years, with the formation of the Premiership, the top 20 have become, because of TV finance, much stronger and more independent, even pulling away from the other 72, and have demanded more power to be taken away from the Football Association.

The FA have two main ace cards when it comes to the relationship with the professional game - they have the FA Cup, which is the biggest of its type of competition in the whole world, and most of all they have the England team.

At one time our top players' ambitions would be to pull on the England shirt and also play in a cup final.

Whilst the advent of foreign players and particularly foreign coaches, coupled with the Champions League now having the top four teams included, has taken some of the gloss away from our FA Cup the one thing players and particularly their agents require to demand the big bucks is that they represent their country on the biggest stage of all.

So last week I was interested to hear that one of Lord Triesman's new innovations was to authorise the FA to spend £200m on the Respect campaign aimed at exactly that, particularly respect to referees.

As we know locally, the Echo has been running a Respect the Ref campaign for quite some time now.

The Respect launch coincided with a wonderful example of the strength of our top league, with the 4-4 draw between Spurs and Chelsea.

However, in the days after the game, the main talking point was not about the eight goals or any particular individual performances, rather the fact that Chelsea defender Ashley Cole flew in with a very high tackle on Spurs player Alan Hutton, which landed just below the knee after the ball had gone.

Most people viewing TV would have expected a red card, but were amazed to see not just that the referee pulled out a yellow but Cole himself approached the referee with a mouthful of objections, making the shape of a ball with his hands and, of course, was followed quickly by three or four of his teammates, which has become a common sight when any Chelsea player has been booked this season.

However, worse was to come when, as the referee took out his notebook, Cole turned his back on him which was the worst form of disrespect I have seen for many years to an official.

Not only were experienced pros dismayed and disgusted by watching this, but what about the many thousands of youngsters around the country who we hear week-in and week-out are copying their peers?

The same night, ironically, the Chelsea youth team were pulling off an excellent result at Aston Villa to reach the final of the Youth Cup.

Some of their football was scintillating and the goals were of the highest quality.

What made it sour was the fact their celebrations were really over the top, but worst of all when an Aston Villa player was being booked by the referee more than one of them waved their hand indicating the player should be given a red card.

So, on one night, Chelsea Football Club told you everything about the lack of discipline from top to bottom.

Undoubtedly, the responsibility for this starts at the manager's door and should go right through all of his staff.

To cap it all, the FA announced they were not to give any further punishment to Cole even though the same day he, or probably his agent or advisors, issued a statement apologising for the tackle and his actions while being booked.

No doubt his advisors persuaded him to do this because his other off field activities in his domestic life have not exactly endeared him to men and women alike, who on the one hand cannot believe the salary he and other top players are picking up and then deride the lack of example given to children who parents then have to try and control.

For me it was nice to meet the new Lord of the FA.

He actually gave me his card and the way I feel at the moment I think I will take opportunity to ring him in the next few days to congratulate him on his launch of the new Respect campaign, but respectfully say in my opinion he missed the best chance to make a point and possibly save most of the money when he could have left out Mr Cole from the England squad.

It would have just taken a call to Mr Capello to say "sorry, we do not normally interfere with your selection but this is an ideal chance for both you Fabio and me to make people sit up and realise that the FA have got teeth and are not content to let the Premiership and their primadonnas rule the roost."

9:50am Saturday 22nd March 2008

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