- Premier League
FIFA doctor slams 'criminal' tackles

FIFA's leading medical official says some challenges in football are "really criminal" and that there are some players who do deliberately seek to injury their fellow professionals.
The issue of reckless tackling is currently a hot topic in the Premier League after a weekend in which Karl Henry was dismissed for a wild tackle on Jordi Gomez and Newcastle unsuccessfully petitioned the FA to punish Nigel de Jong for a challenge that broke Hatem Ben Arfa's leg in two places.
Though there is no suggestion that Michel d'Hooghe, who chairs FIFA's medical committee, was referencing any specific incident, his criticism comes on the same day that Fulham captain Danny Murphy accused certain Premier League managers of fostering an overly physical mentality amongst their players.
Murphy also said he did not believe his contemporaries deliberately set out to hurt opponents, and that dangerous tackles came from players with "no brains", but d'Hooge feels there is intent in certain cases.
"Some players come on the field simply to provoke injuries in other persons - to break a career," he told BBC Sport. "I have two eyes, I can see what happens - how some acts are really criminal."
FIFPro, the global union of players, responded to d'Hooghe's comments and defended their members. "I don't believe there is a player in the world - and we have 50,000 members - who would deliberately try to injure someone else," Then van Seggelen, FIFPro's general secretary, said. "That would not be acceptable."
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
