How Pedro Mendes’ Horrific Injury Should Have Changed Football Forever

· Ben Thatcher the culprit

· Pedro Mendes suffered a seizure on his way to hospital

· Interview with coaches surrounding protection of players

· Mendes escaped serious injury, others may not be so lucky

Pedro Mendes was a stereotypical Portuguese midfielder; a tenacious tackler who possessed impressive technical ability. Mendes was strong and often deployed in a deeper midfield given his gift of passing, but this did not restrict his flair from shining through. The former Spurs and Portsmouth man was a scorer of great goals, once scoring from 55 yards out only for Mark Clattenburg to disallow the goal as he though it has not crossed the line.

Mendes won the Champion’s League with Porto and the FA Cup with Portsmouth before moving to his penultimate club Rangers and ultimately finishing his career where it all started, at Vitoria Guimaraes in Portugal. But despite all this success, the event Mendes is most remembered for is unfortunately being on the receiving end of a brutal assault at the hands of Ben Thatcher.

The incident occurred 13 years ago, in August of 2006. Mendes, playing for Portsmouth at the time, collected the ball following a Manchester City corner and cleared the ball. Only as he released the ball his cheekbone was met with the full force of Thatcher’s elbow. Mendes crashed into the advertising boards leading to an unconscious state for the midfielder. On his way to the hospital the Portuguese native suffered a seizure but was thankfully discharged the following morning. The incident can be seen here: https://youtu.be/anAAJ2fba6E

Thatcher is a serial offender (Telegraph)

The event was shocking. But perhaps more scandalous is that Thatcher only received a yellow card at first. Eventually, following an FA hearing, Thatcher was banned for 8 matches and given a fifteen-match suspended ban. On top of this, his employers Manchester City fined him six weeks wages for the horror tackle. But, was this enough punishment?

There were calls from Pompey fans and the public in general for police interference, as the event certainly qualified as common assault, at the very least. Greater Manchester Police reported a plethora of receipts for complaints made against Thatcher, however they confirmed they would not be investigating the issue further. This was due to Mendes expressing that he did not wish to pursue the case any further. Whilst this was a noble act to protect a fellow professional, it seems ludicrous that charges were not pressed; given the trauma the midfielder was put through.

Mendes would have had genuine grounds to press charges too, as legal sanctions have been distributed in the past for similar events. Sky Sports Pundit Chris Kamara was charged with causing Grievous Bodily Harm all the way back in 1988, after elbowing an opposition player. Notorious villain El Hadji Diouf was the most recent example of police interference, with the Senegalese forward earning himself him a hefty £5000 fine on terms of assault in 2003. But since then, the police have left sanctions at the hands of the English FA. But is this a smart decision?

The Pedro Mendes injury was horrific. The seizure the midfielder endured after the challenge really accentuates the severity of the injury and plenty has been made in the subsequent years about protecting players on a football pitch. Whilst Thatcher received a lengthy ban from football for his actions, a police sanction may have been the catalyst in the further protection of footballers.

A quick google search of ‘banned for elbowing’ returned far too many articles reporting elbow incidents in football. The search gave me a number of articles about footballers receiving mandatory 3 game bans for the act. The incidents date from Robbie Savage, in 2004 pre-Mendes, to Lacazette just 6 weeks ago. The issue with this is that it is a spiral effect. As the offenders know they are unlikely to gain anything more than the basic length ban, they are happy to commit the offence. A football pitch should not act as an area that is above the law and an elbow to the face should be treated the same in a stadium as it would be on the street.

Elbowing is all to common (Daily Star)

Mendes was lucky to escape serious injury. Trauma to the head, due to its housing of the brain, can lead to permanent damage, blood clots and, in very serious cases, death. Ryan Mason was forced to retire, as my colleague K. Wilkins explains here (https://injuriesinsport.wixsite.com/injuriesinsport/post/ryan-mason-the-injury-that-ended-his-career) So why has elbowing on a football pitch become the norm? It is disgraceful and needs to be clamped down on. A standard 3 match ban is not enough for the maliciousness of the offence, while some players even avoid punishment altogether (see case; Fernandinho vs Spurs 09/04/19). The act of intentionally elbowing a player on a pitch is disgraceful and a serious threat to the health of a player. Playing football is a footballer’s job, if they are attacked and get prevented from playing their source of income is lost and their lives are worsened. Attacks, such as Thatcher’s, need to stop. A precedent must be set, whether that be by the police or the FA themselves. But this precedent should have been set 13 years ago.

So, in my opinion, the incident deserved police interference. But what do 3 level 3 FA qualified coaches think on the issue. I caught up with a trio of my previous football managers to ask a series of questions to ultimately see whether they believe players are protected enough. The results are laid out below:

The feeling amongst my former bosses is mutual. A precedent should have been set a long time ago, and until it is, players will always be in danger of serious injury.