Major League Soccer has fined D.C. United forward Charlie Davies $1,000 for his dive that earned a penalty in the waning minutes of United's 1-1 draw against Real Salt Lake last weekend.
"The MLS Disciplinary Committee ruled that Charlie Davies intentionally deceived the officials and gained an unfair advantage which directly impacted the match," MLS executive vice president Nelson Rodriguez said in a statement released by the league. "This type of behavior tarnishes the image of the League, is detrimental to the game and will not be tolerated.
"Moving forward, all instances of behavior that serves to deceive and that directly impact the game will be subject to severe discipline, including a fine, suspension or both."
Davies ran at RSL defender Chris Wingert and appeared to dive without being contacted in the penalty area. Referee Terry Vaughn awarded the penalty nonetheless, and Davies converted the ensuing spot kick to salvage a point for United.
In other MLS disciplinary news:
RED BULLS FINED FOR SOLER'S COMMENTS
MLS fined the New York Red Bulls $10,000 for general manager Erik Soler's statement that publicly bashed the officiating crew from New York's 3-3 draw with the Portland Timbers.
"The statement released by Red Bull New York this week undermines our substantial efforts to continue improving all aspects of our competition," MLS commissioner Don Garber said in a league release.
Soler wrote on Monday:
"We have carefully reviewed the film of our match against Portland last night and I can safely say that the level of refereeing was absolutely below the standards of what is required for a MLS match and completely unacceptable.
"First, the red card given to Thierry Henry was inexplicable. There was no violent conduct on his part whatsoever and this decision was made by a linesman who was more than half a field away. Second, in any soccer game, there is no way that one team can draw 20 more fouls than the other team, especially in a match where one team drew just five fouls. I have never seen this occur in my 30 years in the game.
"We are aware that U.S. Soccer and MLS are working hard to improve the officiating in this country and we support those efforts wholeheartedly. However, if we want to continue increasing the level of play, we cannot let these types of refereeing performances occur. We look forward to speaking with the League to appeal Thierry’s automatic red card suspension and expect that it will be rescinded so that he is available for our match Thursday in Seattle."
Henry did not end up being eligible to play in Thursday night's match.
GALAXY FINED FOR VIOLATING INJURY REPORT RULES
MLS fined the Los Angeles Galaxy $5,000 for violating the league's injury report rules. The league's disciplinary committee determined that the Galaxy purposefully left David Beckham's name off the injury report ahead of the club's game at Colorado despite knowing that he wouldn't play because of back spasms.
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