Sunday’s English Premier League clash was a nail biting affair which was won by United by 3-2. But, the match is now remembered for wrong reasons, i.e., for City’s Gareth Barry, who used abusive language to match official. English FA took the instance immediately and acted upon it. FA found the abuses were in contrary to its Rule E3, hence banned the footballer for one match. FA issued a statement and said, “Manchester City‘s Gareth Barry will serve a one-match suspension with immediate effect after admitting a breach of FA Rule E3 in that he used abusive and/or insulting words towards a match official following his side’s match against Manchester United on Sunday 9 December 2012. Also as part of the standard penalty for this offence, Barry has been fined £8,000.”
Consequently, Berry will not be a part of City’s squad against Newcastle United on Saturday. Actually, City was not happy with the way FA handled the case, but they have to accept the judgment of supreme governing body. City said, “Both the club and Gareth Barry reluctantly accept the punishment which leads to Gareth being unavailable to take part in the weekend’s match against Newcastle. He will return to first-team action against Reading on 22 December.” City have a strong feeling that Barry has not violated any rule whatsoever, coz abuses are impossible to eradicate from a game like soccer where every player plays with full of passion and some kinds of abuses became part of its ‘official’ in-field language. Unfortunately, the official who has been abused is non-other than Mark Clattenburg who has already faced such a kind of criticism in the past. This time too he got FA decision in his favor by banning the player along with imposing a fine on him.
Barry is expected to play in next week City’s clash with Reading, until then, Roberto Mancini will have to use an alternative for him. Interestingly, the game Barry is charged for is the same game where police is also investigating another case wherein Rio Ferdinand was hit by a fan via coin. Looking at the rising cases of pitch invasion by crowd, Gordon Taylor, Professional Footballers’ Association boss, has suggested the use of netting on some parts of the stadium where crowd is suspected to be more violent. This is not the case of abuses along, what would happen, if referee retaliated? No one knows what would happen then. This is happening in English football one after another where crowd, players, or even officials are found being engaged in some kind of hooliganism and racism.