A-League: FFA clear Melbourne City of blame over 12-man bungle

Melbourne City have been cleared of any wrongdoing over a bungle that led to them having 12 players on the pitch.

Tim Cahill makes his way off the pitch after a bungled substitution during Melbourne City’s match against Newcastle Jets.

Melbourne City have been cleared of any wrongdoing over a bungle that led to them having 12 players on the pitch at one stage during the 2-1 win over Newcastle Jets at AAMI Park on Thursday night.

The Weekend Australian has learned that Football Federation Australia was forced to look into the matter after the Jets emailed them yesterday morning seeking clarification of the rules and the likely punishment in the event a club was deemed to have breached them.

There were some suggestions that City could lose the competition points for the match, but FFA put those to bed, blaming the error on the fourth official, Shaun Evans.

The drama happened in the 86th minute, when City attempted to make a double substitution involving Nick Fitzgerald replacing Fernando Brandan and Paolo Retre replacing Tim Cahill.

At one stage City had a 12th player on the park — Cahill — as the Jets attempted to find an equalising goal.

It was 12 v 10 as the Jets were down a man, having already used their allowed three replacements after injured captain Nigel Boogaard was forced off.

A bemused Cahill and the City bench were seen to be laughing over the confusion as the marquee player made his way off the field once the mistake was eventually discovered.

FFA released a statement to The Weekend Australian late yesterday confirming no blame had been attached to Melbourne City.

“In the match between Melbourne City and the Newcastle Jets, the fourth official made an error while conducting a double substitution which resulted in Melbourne City having 12 players on the field of play for a short ­period of time,” a spokesman said.

“When play resumed, there were five passes between the Melbourne City players before the ball went out of play. This passage of active play was approximately 15 seconds.

“Melbourne City’s 12th player, Tim Cahill, was nowhere near the play during that time and left the field of play when the match stopped.

“FFA has been in contact with both clubs and the fourth official in relation to the matter and no further action will be taken.”

Jets officials did not want to comment on the matter yesterday but it is clear they were not happy with the situation, especially given the fact that Evans also refereed Newcastle’s previous game against Wellington Phoenix last week when the Jets claimed Phoenix were awarded a goal that was off-side.

Jets coach Mark Jones described the 12th man incident as “highly unusual” and did not make a huge fuss of it in the after match press conference.

“I’d like to say ‘Yeah, it changed the course of the game’, but obviously it didn’t,’’ Jones said. “He was only on for a couple of minutes. We move on from that.’’

However, it is believed club ­officials had second thoughts later and decided to approach FFA for an explanation.

Melbourne City claimed it was their staff that alerted the match officials to the extra player on the park.

“The officials are the ones who have to control that, not us,’’ coach John van ’t Schip said.