JUVENTUS are overlooking an amazing opportunity in attempting to link-up with West Ham.

Surely Chelsea would have been a better choice as a nursery club.

For in Graeme Le Saux, the Italian giants would already possess an international player whose rightful place is in a nursery.

Sebastien Perez was unfortunate in more ways than one on Monday.

For not only was he quite ludicrously dismissed following Le Saux's punch, but Perez was also caught by the former Ewood star's good hand.

The other heavily bandaged arm, presumably strapped because Le Saux had been sucking his thumb too vigorously, would have provided a much softer blow.

That incident, however, can be used to illustrate and argue more serious points than Le Saux's deficiencies in both ability and temperament.

This was the ideal chance for use of retrial by television.

There is a snowballing argument that video evidence must be brought in to help save the blushes of officials.

But it cannot, without turning a game of football into an episode of You've Been Framed, be used to check on every decision. Imagine the use of video evidence for offsides in a match involving Mike Newell.

Any Roy Keane performance would turn into an X-rated feature-length epic.

And how could David Beckham possibly concentrate knowing his every subversive stamp, nip and scratch was being recorded.

Video evidence must be reserved for two categories of incident - penalties and sendings off. These are the decisions on which a game truly hinges and for which television often provides conclusive evidence.

A one-minute delay and it would have been clear that Tim Flowers made contact with Gianfranco Zola, even if he was already in mid-flight.

Another slight pause and Le Saux is off for an early bubble bath and cup of cocoa.

But, crucially, it would have taken no time at all for a fourth official to relay two key points of information concerning the involvement of Perez.

Although the game need not have been stopped for his first booking, the studio ref would be in a position to take slow motion pictures into account when ruling on the second flashpoint.

I can see no valid argument against TV evidence.

And I do not understand why the FA does not already use the available current evidence to wipe out such blatant miscarriages of justice.

The powers that be delight in wielding their powers when it comes to retrospective punishment.

As for Perez, surely it cannot be right that he is not even allowed an appeal - no matter how futile it might prove to be.

The irony of the situation will not be lost on the Frenchman as British football 'justice' seems to mean the guilty part CAN appeal and the innocent cannot.

And Graeme Le Saux? SOS for Eileen Drewery.....

Neil Bramwell is the Sports Editor

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