The Central Coast Mariners can today advise that the club will accept a one match ban for Roy O’Donovan resulting from an incident that occurred in Round 16 of the Hyundai A-League 2016/17 season.
The independent Match Review Panel (MRP) – consisting of Simon Micallef (Chair), Alan Davidson, and Alan Contini – convened today to consider an incident involving Roy O’Donovan (Central Coast Mariners) that arose in or around the 23rd minute of Central Coast Mariners’ Hyundai A-League Round 16 match against Melbourne City FC on Thursday, 19 January 2017.
The MRP has the authority to consider the incident as the Player was expelled from the match by the Referee. The MRP determined that Roy O’Donovan committed the offence of “Serious foul play (e.g. when challenging for the ball)”.
The MRP has proposed a sanction of one match (the Mandatory Match Suspension), being the Minimum Sanction for the offence.
“Whilst we accept the decision and understand the process, this hurts as a double whammy,” Mariners’ CEO Shaun Mielekamp said. “Not only did Roy miss out on 70 minutes against City but he must serve the minimum additional match under the regulations.
“The MRP have no grounds within the laws of the game to downgrade the card from Red to Yellow and an appeal for obvious error is only relevant if the action was deemed not to have been even a yellow. The club did not wish to risk the possibility of missing Roy for an additional week if we put in an appeal for an obvious error and it was unsuccessful.
“Whilst in our view Roy receiving a Red Card was excessive we note that the MRP determined only the minimum sanction was to be applied.” Mielekamp said.
O’Donovan will serve his one match suspension this Saturday when the Central Coast Mariners host Perth Glory at Central Coast Stadium.
The Central Coast Mariners will make no further comment on this matter.
