The rate of bookings has eased but still the bellyaching goes on

No sooner does the Football Association announce its intention of speeding up the disciplinary system than the Rio Ferdinand case arrives at an adjacent platform like one of those dawdling cross-country trains whose passengers have either forgotten where they got on or cannot remember where they are supposed to be going.

The lawyer-laden Ferdinand affair could not have been processed with quite the swiftness envisaged by the FA's new book 'em and ban 'em policy due to be introduced as a pilot scheme next season.

Nevertheless, the fact that it took a month to get the Manchester United player charged after he had failed to appear for a drug test, two months more before he was tried and another three before his unsuccessful appeal, has vindicated the desire of Mark Palios, the FA's chief executive, to modernise a steam-driven process worthy of Fred Dibnah.

Only this week a disciplinary hearing involving Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Chelsea's Dutch striker, had to be called off because the referee, Barry Knight, had not been summoned to attend and was in fact on his way to Anfield to ref the Premiership match between Liverpool and Portsmouth.

Hasselbaink was charged with misconduct following an alleged elbowing incident during Chelsea's FA Cup fourth round tie at Scarborough on January 24. In fact Mark Hotte, the Conference team's defender who was the supposed victim, had flown down to London to speak on Hasselbaink's behalf.

An embarrassed FA said that the case would be heard at the earliest opportunity. Nobody is holding his or her breath. Under the new arrangement Hasselbaink would have had his case heard within a week, the alleged incident having been reviewed by the FA's compliance unit rather than the video advisory panel, which will be scrapped.

This has got to be better than a system which took eight months to suspend Chelsea's Joe Cole for an offence committed when he was still at West Ham; or leaves Manchester United's Paul Scholes still awaiting a hearing date following an incident with Doriva of Middlesbrough more than six weeks ago.

Palios is clearly trying to increase the momentum of the disciplinary system to match the pace of the season. At present by the time a player's case is heard the offence complained of has become obscured by intervening events.

Making automatic suspensions immediate instead of waiting a fortnight to see if the accused wants a personal hearing brings the domestic game more into line with World Cups and European Championships, where the timescale does not allow for a protracted process. Restricting appeals to immediate bans of more than three games should deter attempts to manipulate the system to suit a team's needs.

Managers will not like players sent off for two bookings being suspended for the next match with no right of appeal but some may try to preserve a man who has been given a straight red card at the weekend for a crucial game in midweek by making sure he has an appeal set for the Thursday. Such frivolous cynicism will risk bans being increased.

Ah, the managers. Clearly the FA will have its work cut out implementing one of the biggest shake-ups yet in the way it deals with footballers who offend. But might it not also give thought to the growing number of managers who castigate referees through the media and often criticise officials to divert attention away from the poor performances of their teams?

Sam Allardyce is already in trouble for implying, after Bolton Wanderers had lost the Carling Cup final to Middlesbrough, that the referee, Mike Riley, had it in for his side. Last weekend Blackburn's Graeme Souness described as "poxy" the award of a free-kick to Arsenal from which Thierry Henry scored.

This week the Liverpool manager Gérard Houllier came up with a list of decisions which had gone against his side as evidence of deteriorating standards among referees and linesmen. All right, James Beattie was offside when he scored Southampton's opening goal last Sunday but by the same token the penalty missed by Michael Owen should not have been given since Harry Kewell was outside the box when Jason Dodd made contact.

Officials are not making more mistakes but the way errors are highlighted on television just makes it seem that way. Following the departure of Phil Don, he of the Dalek school of refereeing, as the Premier League's head whistleblower, the rate of bookings has eased but still the bellyaching goes on.

From time to time persistent whingers are fined or banned from the touchline but suspending them from management for up to a month might have a more sobering effect. Bertie Mee, Arsenal's manager when they won their first Double, gave up post-match press conferences because he did not trust his emotions - a wise move.

Manchester United were similarly tight-lipped after Ferdinand's eight-month ban was upheld on Thursday but after all, what did they expect? The appeal board was always likely to regard the hair samples produced by the player to show that he had not taken drugs as an irrelevance - a load of old follicles, in fact.