Fleet vice chairman Peter Varney has expressed disappointment that his formal protestation regarding last Saturday’s pre-match incident has so far fallen on deaf ears, with the club yet to receive acknowledgement of its complaint.
It follows the confusion before Saturday’s game about the nature of teamsheet changes following an injury to a named player, with the club’s interpretation of the rules having been agreed by phone calls to the FA before kick-off, an incident that left players waiting around in the tunnel (pictured) and the kick-off being delayed.
Varney told FleetOnline, “I feel very strongly about this. Because we won the match 4-2 the regulatory bodies will doubtless hope the issue just goes away but the result could easily have been very different because of the refusal of the match officials to accept the League’s rulebook as sufficient evidence of the rule and insisting on formal telephone guidance from Neal Barry, the FA’s Head of Senior Referee Development.
“The truth is that if a club or a player breaks the rules, regulatory bodies can and do act very quickly.When they mess up, things take a lot longer to address. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for our complaint to be responded to and, more importantly, what guidance has been issued to match officials in the light of last week’s fiasco for this weekend’s fixtures.”
