I would strongly advocate harsher punishments for racially motivated misbehaviour.The game has also had to face the embarrassment of the most recent “bungs” scandal, this time involving George Graham. Dark mutterings suggest that more managers will be questioned following murky dealings with shady agents. Maybe football can at last argue that it is cleaning up its act in this area, albeit belatedly and after much cajoling.Many of our players will be happy to see foreign deals more closely scrutinized. If I lost my place and possibly my job to a foreign player who was no better than me, I would be furious if I discovered the transfer only went through to line the pockets of a greedy manager or agent.Football is literally in the dock with Cantona after he dragged the game’s good name through the Selhurst Park mud How can you make an excuse for that outburst? Well. You can’t, but you can give some reasons.He was obviously provoked by some particularly vitriolic abuse and as we have seen in Boulogne’s harbour recently, French strikers can be a volatile bunch. Eric momentarily cracked under the pressure in a totally unprecedented way. It was the clearest example of the exception proving the rule.

Professional footballers are invariably admirably controlled under extreme pressure when taking torrents of personal abuse from opposing fans.At the risk of getting all “Martin Lewis” here there is an unbalanced view of football at the moment. Only the bad news is reported and I believe the current stereotyping is far from the reality.The truth is that the vast majority of players are hard working, diligent and professional men who are fitting role models for their young fans. The many hours players spend helping charities, coaching kids and integrating with the people in their area through the phenomenally successful Football in the Community Scheme, tends not to make the national press very often. Whereas the very rare fall from grace makes it on to the back or even front pages.The much maligned football fans have been turning up in greater numbers and causing much less trouble than they have for decades. More families are going to watch football than ever before and the real fans, along with the rest of the sport, have emphatically attacked racism.I also believe that those in the game taking money from it illegally or immorally are very few and far between and they are being hunted down at the moment.I like football and have too much respect for many of the people I have met through the game to sit and watch it and them being made scapegoats for all society’s ills..

Club Bruges are worried their waterlogged pitch will not be fit for the European Cup-Winners’ Cup quarter-final first leg match against Chelsea on Tuesday. Their Belgian league match against Lierse on Saturday was postponed after heavy rain. Antoine Vanhove, a director of the club, said about three-quarters of the pitch had been covered with plastic after small holes were made in the turf to improve draining.
There was enough heat in Florence yesterday to dry up a lake as Fiorentina rescued their unbeaten home record courtesy of the Argentinian Gabriel Batistuta’s 18th goal of the season. It earned them a 2-2 draw in an ill- tempered match against Internazionale. There were eight bookings and a red card for Pierluigi Orlandini, who had put Inter 2-1 ahead.

Fiorentina’s Portuguese playmaker, Rui Costa, had equalised Nicola Berti’s 33rd-minute opener for Inter with an unstoppable shot.Another South American, Faustino Asprilla, returned to form by scoring both goals as second-placed Parma kept up their pursuit of the Serie A leaders Juventus with an impressive 2-0 win over Lazio.Asprilla outwitted Lazio’s defence and finished superbly, first in the 11th minute and then in the 52nd minute following neat work by Gianfranco Zola.A goal by Gianluca Vialli 11 minutes from time gave Juventus a 1-0 victory away to Sampdoria in the late game yesterday that enabled them to maintain their six points advantage at the top of the table.Third-placed Roma had to work hard for 45 minutes in an effort to break down struggling Reggiana’s defence before easing to victory with second- half goals from Giuseppe Giannini and Abel Balbo, the Argentinian scoring his 14th of the season.Milan warmed up for Wednesday’s European Cup quarter-final home leg against Benfica with a 3-1 victory over lowly Cremonese, which moved them up to fifth.. Derby County 2

Bolton Wanderers 1
Bruce Rioch, the Bolton Wanderers manager, launched a scathing attack on the Derby striker Marco Gabbiadini yesterday following an incident which left the Bolton defender Simon Coleman with a broken leg.Coleman, a former Derby player, sustained the injury only 10 minutes into a match important to the promotion ambitions of both sides. He appeared to be the victim of a retaliatory kick by Gabbiadini, reacting to an apparent elbow in the face from Coleman.Rioch was so incensed by what he witnessed that he left his seat in the stand and walked on to the pitch, speaking to both the match referee, Michael Bailey, and a policeman after checking on the condition of his player.Still angry more than two hours later, Rioch condemned Gabbiadini’s action. He told reporters: “You all saw the incident, which I thought was a nasty one.” Asked if he felt the injury resulted from a deliberate assault, he said: “It is not the sort of question I want to answer.”Neither the referee nor the linesman took any action either for Coleman’s challenge or Gabbiadini’s response.