THE Football Association have hardly covered themselves in glory during the last six months.

In fact, when it comes to the art of shooting yourself in the foot, they've got a deadlier aim than old golden gun himself, John Wayne.

First, there was the Rio Ferdinand affair. Then came the cock-up over Alan Smith's inclusion in the England squad for the recent friendly with Denmark at Old Trafford.

Now they could be guilty of bringing the game into disrepute once again unless they come down like a tonne of bricks on Birmingham's Enfant Terrible, Christophe Dugarry.

I found it staggering that referee Graham Barber and his two assistants failed to spot what looked like a blatant elbow from Dugarry on Craig Short at St Andrew's on Saturday.

Yes, I accept that referees are only human and, yes, they do make honest mistakes from time to time. Don't we all?

But how can three separate match officials fail to spot something as obvious as what Dugarry got away with?

It wasn't as if the feeble Frenchman tried to be subtle in his attempts to rearrange Short's facial features.

No, it was an act committed in the full glare of a stadium full of people and if 29,000 fans managed to spot it, then why didn't the three men that matter?

Now both Short and Rovers must hope that justice is done through the FA's video review panel -- but I wouldn't hold my breath in waiting for a decision.

In all likelihood, Dugarry will be free to face Rovers in the FA Cup on January 3 because it could take that long for the FA to come to a decision over whether or not to suspend him, which is quite ridiculous.

This is how the current system works.

The FA have requested video footage of the incident which they expect to receive at some point today.

When that arrives, they will then mail it out again to the three members of the video panel, who are drawn from three separate groups of former managers, former players and former referees.

The three panellists will then study the incident independently, unaware of who the other two panellists are.

Each one will make a recommendation and then notify the FA, who will decide whether to charge the Frenchman or not, probably next Monday.

From that point, Dugarry then has 14 days in which to consider his options. He can either admit or deny the charge or request a personal hearing.

If he decides on the latter, which is more than likely, then he probably won't even get a date for a hearing until the New Year at the earliest.

So we could have a scenario where the two teams take the field at St Andrew's on January 3 with the matter still unresolved.

Why should we have to wait months to see justice done? It's just not good enough.