Everybody's Wrong All The Time

Here's what some UEFA guy had to say about the possibility of Darren Fletcher getting his ban overturned:

Taylor told SunSport: “I’ve spoken with Alex Ferguson personally on this — as fate would have it we shared a car after the match. We had an interesting discussion.

“He was very fair about the referee but equally was very disappointed for Darren, as are we all.

“Strictly speaking there is no appeal process but representation can be made.

"If the club want to write to us with information — such as video evidence — explaining why they think this is a harsh punishment then they can do that.

“The likelihood is we’d refer it to our disciplinary body. They would then look to see if there were any special circumstances to justify any departure from established procedures.”

Further words are added here:

"I must stress there is normally no way these matters can be overturned."

Fletcher's hopes could hang on referee Roberto Rosetti admitting to his apparent error in his match report, but Taylor concedes such an admission may not be enough to reverse the red card.

"The ref may take the view a mistake has been made and include that in his report but that wouldn't be in any way decisive," he continued.

"It's an entirely discretionary thing, whether or not the committee feels there is reason to intervene.

"That's the position. Strictly speaking there's no appeal process but representation can be made and looked at."

It's that final sentence I find most interesting - it seems to me to say - "you can't actually appeal but if you like you can send us some stuff, we'll look at it and the ban will stand because you know fine well you can't appeal"
And on rereading the whole thing that's what it all says, the "special circumstances" - what could those be? There are no special circumstance, it was a referee getting a decision wrong, there's nothing special about that is there?
So what's the point of saying all this. It's presumably a way for UEFA to try and stop themselves looking so stupid by not allowing an appeal, making a few noises about looking at it to appease people. The most sensible statement would be just to hold their hands up and say, "yes, not being able to appeal is stupid, there's nothing we can do about this case, unfortunately, but it has highlighted the issue and as from next season we'll change the rules to prevent this situation happening again." I won't hold my breath.