fair (if not harsh) punishment

The offence is nothing like as serious as either taking drugs or deliberately undermining the system by which drugs are detected. It was a single comment, possibly made (I know nothing about the circumstances of the incident) in the heat of the moment and almost certainly unpremeditated and it had no impact on the outcome of the game being played. Moreover, players are not usually punished for things said on the pitch, and so as long as their manic (and probably equally offensive) ranting is confined to matters other than racism, it is excused or ignored or put down to "passion" or whatever. I'm not saying that the comment was either acceptable or not worthy of punishment, merely that i think that in common with many people you're promoting racism into some sort of super-offence, far worse than all the other things that commonly occur.

Posted By: paulg, Nov 30, 15:56:10