PLAY THE ADVANTAGE

Tottenham have been successful in their appeal of Younes Kaboul’s three-game suspension following his red card in Saturday’s 4-0 defeat at Chelsea.

Referee Michael Oliver had adjudged Kaboul to have tripped Samuel Eto’o in the box, denying him a goalscoring opportunity. However, replays showed that not only was there very little contact, but Eto’o was not in control of the ball and there was another Tottenham defender between him and goal.

The Wrongful Claims Dismissal process, which Tottenham has now successfully used twice, is not designed to “overturn” a red card or judge a referee’s decision. The committee only looks at whether or not the suspension is fair.

Read more about Wrongful Dismissals.

Update: It does appear that the presence of Michael Dawson was the deciding factor, according to the Guardian:

“A regulatory commission scrutinised the incident and determined that Dawson was close enough to Eto’o as the striker reached Hazard’s pass to cast doubt over whether the goalscoring opportunity was actually “obvious”. Indeed Eto’o’s touch, under pressure from Kaboul, took the ball back towards Dawson, with that enough to persuade them to rescind the red card. The decision to award the penalty in the first place was not under consideration.”