Crystal Palace vs Millwall: FA consider longer Liam Roberts ban after horror challenge on Jean-Philippe Mateta

Evening Standard

·3 de marzo de 2025

Crystal Palace vs Millwall: FA consider longer Liam Roberts ban after horror challenge on Jean-Philippe Mateta

Deadline of 1pm on Tuesday for FA to call for more severe punishment than a three-match ban

The Football Association are mulling over whether to file an appeal calling for Millwall goalkeeper Liam Roberts to serve a ban longer than three games for his horrific challenge on Crystal Palace’s Jean-Philippe Mateta.

OneFootball Videos

Roberts came flying out of his goal, made slight contact with the ball with a high-kick, but followed through with his studs and caught Mateta in the ear. Mateta was rushed to St George’s Hospital in Tooting, London, and received 25 stitches to his left ear.

Mateta later offered an update where he said he was “doing well” and expected to be back “very soon”. He was discharged from hospital on Saturday evening.

Standard practice is that Roberts will be suspended for three games following his dismissal by referee Michael Oliver in Saturday’s FA Cup fifth round match, which Palace won 3-1 at Selhurst Park.

However, the FA have until 1pm on Tuesday to submit an “insufficient punishment” appeal. The appeal would be heard by a Regulatory Commission, and Millwall and Roberts would have until 6pm on Thursday to provide evidence to the Commission as to why they feel the default three-game suspension is “clearly sufficient”.

The FA will now consider whether or not to put forward an appeal and start that process.

If an appeal is made and the FA are successful, it would be up to the Regulatory Commission to decide Roberts’s new punishment.

The Telegraph columnist and ex-referee Keith Hackett, who was the man in the middle for the 1981 FA Cup final, has said he believes a five-game ban is the appropriate course of action.

The challenge made by Roberts was described at half-time by a fuming Steve Parish as the “most reckless challenge on a football pitch I’ve ever seen”, when the Palace chairman spoke to BBC One.