FA DISCOVERS CTRL-Z, ORDERS CUP MATCH TO HAPPEN AGAIN
A disallowed penalty voids an entire result, and English football remembers it can just rerun the simulation.
The Football Association sub-committee this week voided a completed FA Cup qualifying result over a referee's mishandling of Law 14, the rarely-cited statute governing penalty encroachment, and ordered Mulbarton Wanderers and Woodford Town to simply play the match again from zero, final score and all prior suffering erased as if it never happened, which legally, as of Tuesday, it did not.
Sub-committee chair Nigel Preece defended the ruling in a statement notable mainly for its confidence. 'Law 14 is perfectly clear to the eleven people on Earth who have read it,' Preece said. 'The original result is void. Everyone gets to lose again. That's fairness.' Woodford Town supporters who drove four hours, paid for parking, and watched their team lose once were informed they now get to do so a second time, free of charge, against the same opponent, who has already demonstrated it can beat them.
League officials confirmed the committee is now reviewing whether other historically inconvenient results merit the same treatment, citing England's 1966 World Cup final as a case 'worth revisiting, just to be thorough,' though no timetable for a re-kick has been set. Mulbarton, for its part, has requested the FA simply let them know in advance which of their future wins it intends to keep.
