NEW YORK (Thursday, June 5, 2003) - Major League Soccer’s Disciplinary Committee today announced that MetroStars forward John Wolyniec has been fined and suspended for two games due to his actions leading to a concussion for Columbus Crew defender Chad McCarty in the teams’ May 31 match. Following an investigation by the MLS Disciplinary Committee, Wolyniec has been assessed a fine of $500 and suspended for the MetroStars’ next two upcoming matches, at the Kansas City Wizards on Saturday and against the Chicago Fire at home on Saturday, June 14. The incident was not seen by the game officials, but was captured on videotape. The Committee reached its decision following a review of videotape evidence and interviews with Wolyniec and McCarty. A summary of the MLS Disciplinary Committee’s findings follows: As the ball is crossed into the penalty area, Wolyniec and McCarty jostle for position. Wolyniec then throws his elbow back toward McCarty, who is behind him. Wolyniec’s elbow connects with McCarty’s head causing a laceration and a concussion. The Wolyniec incident occurs far from the ball and involves an action that is in no way a play on the ball. The MLS Disciplinary Committee was created to protect the integrity of MLS competition through monitoring both player behavior and referee performance. In accordance with League policy, the Discipline Committee is only empowered to act in contravention of a referee’s ruling on the field when a play, or the consequences of a play, are of an egregious or exceptional nature or in circumstances where the referee did not see the play in question. The MetroStars return to action this Saturday, June 7, in a match against the Kansas City Wizards at Arrowhead Stadium (8:00PM ET). McCarty is expected to be available for the Crew in its home contest Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET against the San Jose Earthquakes. http://www.mlsnet.com/content/03/mls0605wolyniec.html
i hope nicky pays his fine. i am all against violence but that guy was a hack and john just gave him some payback for the terrible foul. i remember watching the game saying holy s**t when he tackled woly, then saying 'watch, i bet someone retaliates against him duringthe corner'. btw, jeez john got him good.
seriously, john got hacked pretty good right before.....chad deserved it....to be fair, mchacker should've received a one game suspension....hey...the refs missed that call too...should've been a second yellow.... more importantly, we're low on forwards after kc....
Two games with no corresponding McCarty punishment is harsh when you consider that Chad clotheslined Howard and then took Woly down hard.
completely forgot about the clothesline.... friggin unbelievable.... i guess you need to draw blood...
Two games and a 500 dollar fine (to a guy who's making the minimum!) when McCarty was thugging it up all over the goddamned field - as he has consistently done in every game of his career - and gets off scott-free. Preposterous. A fucking joke, MLS.
Maybe this is the 'hosing' that Bill predicted was coming our way. The same video would show the clothesline and the later foul on John. I'm surprised there was no agreement over cigars and brandy that one thing cancels out the other. The net result is we face Chicago at home without John and with Clint on the road -- not to mention Timmy and Eddie out of the picture. Feels like a hosing to me.
One thing that really bothers me is that it doesn't matter what happens during a game they can always come back with the tape bull$H!, but that doesn't count for other purposes, like offsides, pks, fouls that deserved yellow/red cards etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm not favoring this, it's just that when a game is over it's over, and it should be the same in every aspect not just for certain situations; If the refs didn't call it, what then?, This committe should make all the calls they missed then, not only here but in all the games, including that big offside Beasley goal against SJ.
MLS just wants to be like the EPL. Wasnt there an incident in England when Bergkamp was cought elbowing a player, while in the game noting was called, but after review Bergkamp was suspened. Does anyone else remember that? This seems an awful lot like it.
John can go play in the A-League for two weeks and make more money than if he wasn't suspended. I think he was on Milwaukee.
Well, if the refs reviewed it and only fined McCarty for smacking Howard in the face we'd be loving it and calling them sensible, so we can't freak out here. Woly did elbow him, we'll have to deal with it. I can live with his punishment. It does bother me that McCarty's hacks were overlooked though.
No, I can't take credit for predicting this. Ironically, my hosing prediction, was really a statement about the quality of MLS reffing. That blown offsides call was so so bad that it invites conspiracy theories. So shite reffing and even more shite HQ crap lead to this result. There was no justice for the Metro in the Ammann/Diallo incident and less justice here. I'm glad that Wolyniec retaliated. I hope Bradley quietly commends him for it. I hope that the rest of the Metro are prepared to do the same in order to protect themselves from the likes of career ending thugs like McCarty.
Actually, I support the use of post-game video to punish violent offenses commited that the ref did not catch. What is missing is consistency. McCarty takes a pass too despite his thuggery? The league's overlooking of Diallo's (then the MLS' fair-haired boy) assault on Mike Ammann, means there is no justice. As they say, No Justice-No peace. If the Metro boys have to deal out concussions until the League stops assaults on our players, bring on the concussions. MLS HQ is inept.
As someone who broke two teeth after receiving an elbow during a soccer match, I absolutely think it is appropriate to punish Wolyniec. People underestimate how much damage elbows can do. But the fact that McCarty got off without even a fine is insane. On the Columbus board I saw comments about how he was "playing the ball." That's bull----. You never clothesline a goalie, regardless of where the ball is. Especially when that goalie is the marquee player in his position, and is about to earn MLS enough money to pay for more than 10% of the entire league's salary for this season. That's not only inconsistent, it's also a bad business decision.
Sorry, I should have ordered the words differently. I meant if they only punished McCarty instead of only punishing Woly, we'd all be loving it instead of hating it. Like BillR4, I like post game replay reviewing to catch action the ref might have missed. It's a huge field and to expect one guy to watch 22 guys and the ball at all times is a bit much. We should use video to cut down on dirty play, it's just that this time it worked against us. Hopefully next time it will work for us. I don't see this as us getting hosed by MLS, they just caught a guilty guy. Can't whine over it.
Wolyniec didn't set up the game winner off the elbow and no one will be relegated because of it. ...oh, and Guevara didn't dive to set up a pk like Pires did. (yes, I'm bitter)
I would like to know if it is in Wolyniec's job description to serve as an enforcer. Is that one of the reasons he was brought in by Bradley? I don't think it's necessarily evil to do so. I'm just wondering if that's how it works.
May I inquire as to just whose career McCarty ended? As for "justice", the tackle on Wolyniec was whistled, a close range DFK was awarded and McCarty got a yellow card. In view of the foul, which was clear, the appropriate penalty per the LOTG, was issued. Have any of you ever watched an EPL match? There are ten tackles a game like that, where the ball is secondary to bringing a man down. If you send off everyone who tackles like this, most games will end up five-on-five. And I have yet to hear even one of you gripe about Pope blatently pulling Cunningham by the shirt at the top of the area, around minute 15. Violent? Certainly not. But the rulebook defines that exact situation as an "obvious goalscoring opportunity" and demands a red card to the defender. It's very unambiguous. So your moral outrage about the sanctity of the game only extends to when YOUR ox is gored. Does not make for a convincing argument. And how about the blatent DIVE that Ziadie took when McBride barely bumped into him? Rolling on the ground, shrieking, holding his hands to his face like the worst of EuroDivers got that great brutal thug McBride a clearly underserved yellow. Look at the replay. Where is your outrage over that? As for Howard, you can call it "clothelining" all you want if it makes you feel better. Was Howard fouled? Absolutely. Did the Referee miss it? Totally. Was Howard well within his rights to be hot about it? Sure was. But it was an arm across the chest, he was not "violently slammed to the ground" as some of you would have it, and it was not in any way "violent conduct" which is the rulebook threshold for a sendoff. And some of you really ought to stop implying that the childish, foolish, unsporting and dangerous Wolyniec retaliation was somehow righteous retribution for the foul on Howard. They were unrelated. Wolyniec intentionally and with aforethought committed a violent assault on another player that was not even remotely within the context of the match. If everybody who is fouled, even badly fouled, is to be awarded sanction to go ahead and punch somebody, we might as well shut the game down now.
My thoughts. 1. John properly retaliated against a thug who well deserved it. 2. John was penalized as a result and I have no argument with that. 3. McCarty was not penalized for his actions, neither in the course of the game nor after review. That is blatant crap. 4. So far, the ref has not taken any heat for screwing up some really bad decisions in the course of the game. That is also crap. If McCarty was issued a well deserved 2nd yellow, this situation would have never happened. 5. I hope John's suspension serves Bradley notice that we are in desperate need of another striker, as I've posted before.
Go ahead and check it out clothesline.mpg You'll see McCarty come in from the side, grab Howard above the shoulder around his neck, and Howard go down from the impact of the blow to his head area. Both McCarty's and Wolyniec's plays were dangerous plays to the head area, red card offenses if the ref catches them. What Metro fans want to know is why both of them weren't punished after review from the league office as they deserved to be. Neither of the plays should have gone unpunished.
I love how ya'll shoot out this "Hack Artist" McCarty idea and how he should have been given a red card for this and a yellow card for this and how Wolyniec was justified in what he did. Now turn it around. How many yellow and Red Cards did Pope and Jolley deserve for permanetly attaching their arms to the back of Cunningham's Jersey the whole game? How many elbows to the head, causing blood and a concusion, does McBride deserve to give out for having Pope, Jolley, and Arena's feet and knees applied to the small of his back when he goes up for the ball? Or how about when they wrap their arms around him and shove him to the ground then stand over him so he can't get up for the free kick? Explain that to me and maybe I'll concede that McCarty is a bigger hack then any of the guys the Metros put out there that night and deserved to be physically assulted for it.