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Football Joy to end 2015. This cheating has to stop. Why should Fraser Fyvie not be banned from football for 3 years? What is wrong with players and supporters of our great game?

A few pieces of football news just floated by on various media sources. All highly depressing.

1. Sheffield United are investigating allegations of racism by their fans at their home game with Bradford City last monday.
2. Coins were allegedly thrown by Bradford City fans towards Sheffield United striker Billy Sharpe in the same game.
3. Stuart Milleker, an alleged ” Notts Forest fan” has been banned from attending football matches for three years after entering the field in the game versus Derby County and attempting to grapple a Derby player.
4. Fraser Fyvie, a Hibernian player, has been banned for two games for feigning a face injury in a successful attempt to get a Rangers player sent off. 

The most depressing part of this story above is the cheating by Fraser Fyvie and the even more depressing part is that few saturdays go by where I do not visualise cheating in this guise in a game that I see. Sometimes total simulation and more commonly gross exaggeration of an injury, usually timed to help the team in a difficult or final moments of a game.

What occurs to me is that often the punishment does not fit the crime. Players, managers and fans all are quick to point out the failings of referees. Myself included. Keith Stroud in his performance in the Reading v Brentford game two days ago was exceptionally poor. However what chance do they have with the ” clever” feigning of injury by players like Fraser Fyvie? One also presumes this is the not first time he has attempted this party trick and presumably been successful before. His behaviour also means that if becomes more difficult for referees to stop a game for injury if in the back of their minds is a ” cry wolf” scenario. Why has he not been banned for three years? Why only two games?

Football is a game and is played both on and off the pitch with volatile emotions. But it is a game. Players should not cheat, fans should not try to harm players and racism in 2015 is simply moronic.