ACCRINGTON STANLEY bad boy Sam Finley has copped an EIGHT-GAME ban for calling an opponent “pikey”.
Rochdale’s Paul McShane, the former Premier League defender and Republic of Ireland international, complained to match officials after the teams clashed on New Year’s Day.
Accrington’s Sam Finley has copped an eight-game ban for calling an opponent ‘pikey’Credit: PA:Press Association
Finley initially claimed he had branded McShane a “p***k”, then said he had told him to “f**k off back to your caravan you p***k”.
But the Stanley player eventually admitted the charge and was handed the eight-game suspension, plus an £850 fine, by a Football Association disciplinary panel that included Tottenham legend Gary Mabbutt.
In the report of the written reasons for the sanction, the panel said: “‘Pikey’ has well-known disparaging connotations associated with the term and is therefore commonly considered a slur.”
The former Everton trainee had acknowledged, when claiming to have used the “caravan” insult, that he was making reference to McShane’s Irish nationality.
Finley, 27, has a long rap sheet with the football authorities -including being found guilty of another aggravated breach of the rule regarding “abusive and/or insulting words”.
On that occasion, when he was playing for AFC Fylde against Lowestoft Town in the National League North in February 2016, he was suspended for four games abusing a match official with insults which included references to sexual orientation.
Finley was sent off for “foul and abusive language” after referee Josh Smith had awarded Lowestoft a penalty in their 3-1 win over Fylde.
In January 2019 he was banned for five games for an apparent stamp on Charlton’s Lyle Taylor during a League One match.
Finley also had disciplinary issues during his time at New Saints, where he won the Welsh Premier League four times.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
