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Accrington manager John Coleman awaits FA decision after referee outburst
The Accrington Stanley manager John Coleman could discover on Monday if he will be charged by the Football Association for his rant about referee Jonathan Moss.
Coleman accused the Premier League official of “arrogance beyond belief” and “ruining” his weekend with his display in Accrington Stanley’s 1-0 defeat to Derby County and the governing body, which is aware of his outspoken observations, is awaiting Moss’ report, which is due on Monday.
The 56-year-old predicted on Saturday that the FA would take action, saying: “I will probably get into trouble for criticising him.” He also said he hoped Moss would raise a post-match altercation between the pair, when he claimed the official had him thrown out of the lounge at the Wham Stadium, in his report.
Coleman complained about the red card shown to the Accrington midfielder Daniel Barlaser, who was shown two yellow cards in the opening hour, and the award of a free kick that led to a corner which, in turn, preceded Martyn Waghorn’s scrappy winner.
And Coleman extended his attack by insisting that officials routinely favour bigger clubs and penalise Accrington, who have the lowest average attendance in League One.
Stanley are already facing one FA charge, of failing to control their players after Charlton were awarded an injury-time penalty last week, and have until 6pm on Monday to respond to that.
Coleman added: “This is the tip of the iceberg [against Derby]. We had two last week. The disappointing thing is it is always against the bigger clubs that you get bad decisions. [Against] Charlton, [against] Sunderland – the lad [Chris Maguire] punched the ball [into the net]! We have pictures of the ball on the lad’s hand. We are going to need to magic 25,000 fans so we get a few decisions going in our favour. I’m not going to change the world am I? We are going to get differences of opinion but if it is swings and roundabouts, some should go in your favour.”
Coleman also believes that what he feels was an unjust FA Cup exit will damage Accrington next season as he lamented the income they lost with their exit.
“Derby’ll probably get Man United away, won’t they?” he said. “Plum draw. I have to block it out of my mind. It will be frustrating watching the fifth round pan out. It would have made a bigger difference to us than it does to Derby, that’s for sure. Their wage bill for a month would be ours for a year comfortably. If we had have won, it would have made a big difference to our budget. It would have made a big impact on what we can do next year in League One.”
Coleman insisted he does not make a habit of criticising officials. “Anyone who knows me knows I’m honest,” he said. “Most of the referees I’ve encountered and I have encountered thousands over my career, they know I am not biased. I probably give the best marks in the whole of the Football League and probably the fairest.”