The Bermuda Football Association have finally gone too far.

Their decision to punish St David's over the bottle throwing incident in the game against BAA is one of the stranger decisions the governing body have taken in recent years.

And that's saying something.

Worse than the five-year ban slapped on Kris Frick, more confusing than the scheduling of mid-week matches that forced St George's to play a 'home' game against Somerset in Somerset last season. This sits above and beyond all of those.

I am not against clubs being punished for the actions of fans, players or officials that threaten the safety of a game, in fact I believe in those instances clubs should be severely punished.

This however was not one of those times, this was an occasion that called for a little bit of common sense, but, just like referee Wendy Woodley whose over-reaction created this mess in the first place, the BFA have failed to use theirs.

Woodley originally abandoned the game because a bottle was thrown on to the pitch. This though, was, AN EMPTY PLASTIC WATER BOTTLE, thrown into a goalmouth at the other end of the field from where the action was taking place.

Are we really to believe that Woodley felt threatened, or feared for the players' safety? If she is as thin-skinned as she comes across then she is entirely unfit to be a referee in the first place. More likely she applied the letter of the law on objects entering the field of play, which was created to deal with missiles thrown with the intention of causing harm, and not a plastic bottle tossed in frustration.

If that is the case, then she appears unable or unwilling to differentiate between the two, which in fact is more worrying. Is it right that St David's should be punished for her failings?

In light of her report into the incident the BFA have awarded the points from the game to BAA, and recorded the result as a 3-0 win in their favour. But, by their own admission, the BFA could not identify who was responsible, merely stating it was the actions of 'a fan or person sympathetic to St David's'.

How do they know?

Let's not forget that St David's were 4-0 up at the time, and there was less than five minutes left to play. The BFA have justified their decision by citing competition rules on the matter (article (p)(i), if you're interested) regarding objects thrown on to the pitch.

And BFA general secretary David Sabir backed this up by saying it sent a 'strong message...that any behaviour which negatively impacts the outcome of a match will be taken seriously in light of the recent challenges within the community generally'.

Which seems to be suggesting that the throwing of a bottle is akin to gang violence and shootings. Baffling enough, but how, pray tell, did this incident negatively impact the outcome? This game was as good as over anyway, the only person who appears to have negatively impacted the outcome was Woodley.

I suspect that the BFA know all this. But like FIFA, UEFA, and any other football governing body, they have done the safe thing and hidden behind their rules and regulations. The last resort of people who know something is wrong, but are so stuck in their intransigence that they cannot bring themselves to admit it.

And yet we should not be surprised by this approach, it is entirely in keeping with the stance of those administrators that govern football the world over, and it is the approach that says 'the referee can do no wrong, and if they do, stick your head in the sand like an osterich and wait for it all to go away'.

It is the reason Thierry Henry was never punished for his blatant act of cheating, the reason Manchester United midfielder Darren Fletcher and Barcelona defender Eric Abidal were forced to miss last year's Champions League final after wrongly being sent off in the semi-finals, the reason we don't yet have goal line technology.

St David's still have an appeal, a good thing too since they were kept away from the original hearing, let's hope the BFA see sense and, at the very least, order a replay.

There is still time for the BFA to rescue the situation, to display some common sense, and to acknowledge that sometimes when officials get things wrong it is ok to say so. I won't be holding my breath though.

JOSH BALL