Ferdinand given 8 Month Ban

[Rob]

Originally Posted by diothoir For a start, Cantona got a worldwide 9-month ban ( http://www.unitedmanchester.com/spor...-biography.htm ) which is longer than Rio's for you math impaired people.

For the memory impaired people, Cantona was immediately suspended by Manchester United until the end of that season. They agreed a 5 month ban with the FA and later on, the FA changed their mind after agreeing a deal and also helped him get police conviction.

The fact is that he missed a test. If an athlete like Paula Radcliffe missed a test, imagine the uproar. Why should football be any different? Anyway, its been pretty clear that Palios has been desperate to tighten up the rules since he took over, and Rio was the first one he could get at.

Football has different rules to Athletics. Just as Baseball, Cricket, Rugby, Basketball and just about every other sport under the sun do. Personally I feel the athletics rules are too severe especially considering how they treated the likes of Mark Richardson and Dougie Walker.

Also, it was obvious that Ferdinand was going to get banned until after the European Championships because there would have been a furore about hypocrisy otherwise.

You mean like there was for Stam, Davids, that Man City player nobody can remember, etc?

Rio missed the test, Man Utd didn't remind him, I'm honestly surprised he didn't get a longer ban. If this were any other player I'd expect the same: Drugs are unacceptable and missing a test is completely unacceptable.

You might expect the same but their aren't concrete rules and that's the problem. It's been a clear case of rules for one person and rules for others. Why did Blatter stick his nose in this case when he didn't for any others? Why were there 3 members of the FA on the 8 man commission deciding the case? Why did it take 3 months to get a ruling?