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It’s official: Rooney banned for 3 matches

Comment: 0 October 14th, 2011 by: admin

Speculations of Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney being handed the maximum 3-game suspension from the Euro 2012 competition have now become official as of late afternoon Thursday.

The sanction was brought down a week after Rooney was sent off the field for kicking Montenegro’s Miodrag Dzudovic during the Group G match last Friday.

‘The striker will now be suspended from playing in his country’s next three UEFA national competition matches for which he would be eligible,’ announced UEFA via an official statement.

It was said that the striker was ‘shocked and disappointed’, while England coach Fabio Capello was left ‘stunned’.

The ban eliminates the striker from the upcoming matches in the tournament’s Group Stages, presenting Capello the dilemma of whether to keep Rooney in the English team or drop him.

News of the suspension reached the coach via a fax sent from Switzerland and delivered to him from the FA headquarters.

The UEFA was said to have given the FA a full three days to respond to the verdict upon receiving it in full written form.

The FA told Yahoo! News that it would file an appeal after it has learned the full reason behind the decision.

‘Further to UEFA’s decision to impose a three match suspension on Wayne Rooney following his sending off against Montenegro, the FA await the full reasons from the disciplinary committee, and will give full consideration to the decision internally, before deciding on any response to UEFA or making any further public comment,’ read the FA’s official statement.

A risk the FA face in appealing the decision is the possibility of UEFA increasing the severity of the sanction should it consider the current ban ‘frivolous’.

The sanction will see Rooney miss all of England’s matches in the Euro 2012 Group Stage next summer.

Expecting a suspension to be sanctioned on the striker, Capello was forced to strategise, looking at potential replacements including another striker and Rooney’s teammate Danny Welbeck.

The Italian will be looking to Welbeck and other possible stand-ins for the upcoming exhibition matches against Spain and Sweden.

The incident involving Rooney’s kick was described by Capello as a ‘silly mistake’.

Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson quickly came to Rooney’s defence, stating that despite the incident the striker has been showing increasingly favourable temperament and control.

‘As maturity comes it brings other things,’ Ferguson said.  ‘It brings responsibility and I think he’s improving this time.’

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