Dear M. Platini,
Darren Fletcher’s dismissal from the field of play during last night’s UEFA Champion’s League semi-final second-leg against Arsenal is a travesty of justice and an insult to the great work that UEFA does in promoting fair play in its competitions.
Fletcher was in fact mistaken for another player – a player who fouled Cesc Fabregas, when clearly there was no foul.
So, according to UEFA’s own rules – see
http://www.uefa.com/multimediafiles/download/regulations/uefa/others/70/22/60/702260_download.pdf:
XII Disciplinary Law and Procedures – DopingArticle 23
Reasons for protest
23.04 A protest against a caution or expulsion from the field of play after two cautions is admissible only if the referee’s error was to mistake the identity of the player.
Fletcher’s red card can and should be protested and rescinded so that he can fairly play in the final.
Even without applying the rules as they stand, it is clearly an injustice and completely at odds with UEFA’s commitment to Fair Play. Seemingly the whole world can see this and yet UEFA wants to stick by the rules as if the rules are more important even when they are so obviously misapplied, wrong and inflexible in this instance.
For what it’s worth – I guess nothing and that UEFA bureacrats will treat the views of fans and players with contempt – I also started a petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/mufc1234/petition.html.
I hope that you as President of UEFA and a former great player will see what happened like the rest of football and use whatever influence and/or discretionary powers you have to overturn this terrible ruling and let Darren Fletcher play in the final.
Yours sincerely,
—