William Gallas's Escape After Tackle Exposes Flaws in FA's Rule Book

Owen Coyle's frustration was understandable after he saw William Gallas's brutal challenge on Mark Davies go unpunished during Bolton's defeat at Arsenal.

Coyle's Bolton side were fighting hard to prevent Arsenal from cancelling out their early two-goal lead and the move that led to Cesc Fabregas's equaliser was triggered by Gallas's tackle that we shall call ill-judged (and that's being kind).

But while the Wanderers manager certainly had grounds for complaint about an incident he described as an "assault", his claim that the Arsenal players should have stopped play was misplaced and correctly dismissed by opposite number Arsene Wenger.

Instead, Coyle and Wenger's main rivals in the title race must accept that Gallas will escape unpunished for a tackle that on many other occasions would, and should, have earned a red card and at least a three-match ban.

The FA have now made it clear they will not take any further action, but the situation highlights the authorities' inability to deal with incidents that escape a match official's full attention.

In this case, referee Alan Wiley is now believed to have told the FA he viewed the incident as two players coming together and allowed the game to go on, although his appears to be the minority view.

Coyle and Wenger were certainly united in their condemnation of the tackle.

"It was a terrible foul and normally would have carried a red card," said Coyle. "Arsenal carried on and scored and it's puts fair play out of the window."

Wenger responded: "There are two things I've heard just now. One, that he (Coyle) was not happy with the tackle. I'm sorry the tackle was not a good one, and I apologise. And the second thing, that we went on to play, and I think that's unfair."

And that is as far as it goes, given the authorities' stance on reviewing incidents of foul play.

The FA's disciplinary processes outline the occasions the authorities are unable to take retrospective action and states: "Fifa guidelines aimed at avoiding the "re-refereeing" of matches generally prevent the FA from taking disciplinary action on incidents which are seen and dealt with at the time by the match officials (this includes taking no action).

"As a general rule, if the match officials see an incident and have jurisdiction to take action, The FA cannot act retrospectively."

Of course, any discussion about bad tackles can quickly descend into a churlish exchange of who did what to who first. And when it comes to Bolton and Arsenal, both clubs can point to any number of incidents that have scarred their meetings in recent years.

Gallas's challenge looked awful, but in his defence it may have been more mistimed and careless, rather than malicious, although that would certainly be a generous view. The point is however, that there is no mechanism to reassess the referee's snapshot, potentially hindered, view of the incident.

The priority is surely to eliminate the kind of tackles that can cause serious injury and potentially end careers. Fortunately we don't see too many broken legs in the game nowadays – we certainly don't want to see more.

For that reason, it should not be beyond the wit of the FA, and the humility of officials such as Wiley, to create a system that allows the review of serious incidents without undermining the authority of the referees' control of games.