Brisbane Roar coach Ange Postecoglou has questioned the process behind Football Federation Australia’s decision to hand Besart Berisha a one-week suspension.
Brisbane Roar coach Ange Postecoglou has questioned the process behind Football Federation Australia’s decision to hand Besart Berisha a one-week suspension.
Berisha was at the centre of a confrontation between players, coaching staff and officials after netting a late winning goal in Brisbane’s 2-1 victory over Sydney on Saturday.
After the final whistle the Albanian removed his shirt and gestured toward Sydney’s Pascal Bosschaart, appearing to suggest the two should settle any differences in the tunnel.
Berisha has now been given a one-week ban with a further week suspended, to be enforced in the case of a future transgression.
“It’s been a distraction to myself,” Postecoglou said.
“But at the end of the day we’ve got a game in 24 hours time. The players trained well this morning and they’re ready for it. I’m disappointed with the way it’s gone, but I guess the decision’s been made.”
Brisbane have seven days to decide whether or not to lodge an appeal against the suspension.
“I think from what I understand, obviously it’s a club decision, not my decision … we’ve got seven days to reply to it and come up with what we think we should do,” Postecoglou said.
“My inclination is not to appeal.”
Postecoglou questioned the process that led the FFA to hand down the suspension, after the referee and his assistants deemed a yellow card to be sufficient punishment at the time.
“The facts are that directly after the incident the four match-day officials came up to me and said they were cautioning Besart, they saw everything and they deemed it should be a yellow card offence,” he said.
“They wrote it on the team sheet.”
“Something’s happened after that that’s made them scrub it. It’s been sent to match review panel, maybe that’s why, because they can actually sit down and watch the video evidence.”
“The match review panel come back with nothing, so then it’s referred to another party.”
“His offence is deemed to be more serious than players who have found guilty of betting on football … players in a physical confrontation with officials after a game … coaches questioning the integrity and character of referees.”
“As I sit here now, I don’t think it’s smart to appeal. He had 30 seconds where he let his emotions run away with him and did something really silly which we were disappointed with, and he’s apologised for.
“From my point of view, it would have been dealt with accordingly with some sort of reprimand against him.”
