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Suspension

Rotherham defender receives 10-game ban for sectarian abuse of James McClean

Kirk Broadfoot has been slapped with the longest ban the FA has ever handed down for verbal abuse.

KIRK BROADFOOT HAS been served with a 10-game ban by the Football Association after being found guilty of misconduct.

Though the FA have not divulged the specifics of the incident, it’s believed the defender engaged in sectarian abuse of Republic of Ireland international James McClean during a Championship clash between Rotherham and McClean’s former team Wigan back in March.

In the 31st minute of the game, both were yellow carded after McClean went down under a challenge from the former Glasgow Rangers player and appealed for a penalty. The pair had to be separated but Wigan were awarded a free-kick from which Jermaine Pennant scored.

Soccer - Sky Bet Championship - Blackpool v Wigan Athletic - Bloomfield Road James McClean in action for Wigan against Blackpool last season. Barrington Coombs Barrington Coombs

Wigan went on to win the game 2-1 with Broadfoot claiming afterwards that McClean was ‘a cheat’.

It’s a blatant dive. He’s cheating. That is cheating, I am nowhere near him and he’s diving. Everyone can see I clearly jumped out of the way and he dived up. There’s no more I can say about it. I’m nowhere near him. He’s dived and it leads to their goal. It’s disappointing to see.”

The FA have agreed with the allegation that Broadfoot was in breach of FA Rule E3 (1)  - engaging in ‘any manner which is improper’ through the use of threatening, abusive, indecent or insulting words.

But Broadfoot has also been found to be in ‘aggravated breach’ of E3 (2) which relates to a person’s ethnic origin, colour, race, nationality, face, gender, sexual orientation or disability.

Both Luis Suarez and John Terry were charged by the FA with breaking the same rules but the suspensions handed out to both players – eight for Suarez’s racist abuse of Patrice Evra and four for Terry’s racist abuse of Anton Ferdinand – fall short of what Broadfoot had been slapped with.

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