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Di Vaio, Romero, Kinnear all suspended by Disciplinary Committee

MarcoDiVaioMontrealImpactRedCard-HoustonDynamo (AP)

By DAN KARELL

Major League Soccer made sure that the actions on Wednesday night between the Houston Dynamo and Montreal Impact would not be tolerated.

The league’s Disciplinary Committee announced in a release on Friday evening that Impact forwards Marco Di Vaio and Andres Romero have been suspended for the first three games of the 2014 season for “violent conduct and endangering the safety of their opponents.”

Both Romero and Di Vaio were shown red cards in the 89th minute after a frustrated Romero kicked at Dynamo right back Kofi Sarkodie while he was on the ground from a foul committed by Romero. As tempers flared and Sarkodie stood up to yell back at Romero, Di Vaio came in and on multiple occasions, putting his hands to the face of Dynamo players coming to the defense of Sarkodie.

Di Vaio was also fined $1,000 while Romero was fined $250 for their actions.

The Disciplinary Committee added a third suspension to Dynamo head coach Dominic Kinnear for leaving his technical area during the late-match scuffle. Kinnear will serve his suspension on Sunday when the Dynamo host the New York Red Bulls in the Eastern Conference semifinals of the 2013 MLS Cup playoffs.

In addition to the fines and suspensions to players and coach, both teams were fined separately for “violating the league’s mass confrontation policy.”

The Impact were fined $25,000 for their fourth violation of that policy this year. The Dynamo were fined $5,000 for their second violation. The two teams were involved in an incident in August following a 5-0 victory for the Impact at Stade Saputo that earned the wrath of the Disciplinary Committee.

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What do you think of this news? Do you agree with the suspensions? Do you believe Di Vaio and Romero should have been suspended longer? Do you see Kinnear’s absence hurting the Dynamo on Sunday?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. How Corey Ashe escapes penalty in all of this is a joke. If you watched the game Ashe and DiVaio were going at it from the very start. He was yapping all game and than acted like a madman in the corner adding to the confusion. Say what you will about Montreal but Ashe was out of control and the official gave him a clear pass. Houston supporters should feel content that it was only Kinnear suspended in fairness.

    The official in the match was also a total disgrace. He pandered to Houston and Kinnear ….several times explaining his decisions to the Houston coach while ignoring the Montreal players and coaching staff. I am not justifying the antics of the Montreal players and the penalty was a clear call, but if you watch the entire game you will see that the official had lost control of the game from kickoff. I would suggest it was the official who contributed to the end result with his poor man management ….and I hope for the sake of MLS he gets an early start to his off season as well.

    Reply
    • Dude, you can try to blame it on the ref if you want, but there’s no way around the fact that Romero and DiVaio both committed absolutely moronic and inexcusable actions and deserve to pay for it. No ref is responsible for this, it’s all on the players individually.

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  2. You know what? If Kinnear wanted to make sure he didn’t get suspended, he should have stayed put. Simple as that. If he had followed the rules, he’d be there on Sunday. Fans can whine about it all they want, but he broke an actual rule. MLS didn’t just make something up out of thin air. I say this as an NY fan, but one who would MUCH prefer to have Kinnear on the sideline on Sunday. I want to beat an absolute full strength Houston squad, not one with excuses.

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  3. Kinnear’s suspension is an absolute joke. Let’s suspend someone who was obviously helping the ref get a hold of the match by separating players. It was obvious that the refs had lost control of what was happening on the pitch. Kinnear acted responsibly for the benefit of the game, and they are punishing him for it.

    It is not like he invaded the pitch to throw a tantrum or interfere with play. The disciplinary committee needs to pull their collective head out of their arse! This taints the playoffs, no because of some conspiracy, but because people want to see the best that these teams can offer in the playoffs. This interferes with the trueness of the game.

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  4. You know what I DEMAND to see and I think others should as well, is a referee post game press conferences.

    That have just as much to do with the potential outcome of a game (arguably more) as any player or coach and I’m sick and f*cking tired of all this up in the air BS of explanations on their calls. They, as individuals, should be in the limelight like any player or coach and they should be graded and charted on their performances and be in the football conversations every weekend. Like I’m talking charts and graphs and stats explaining stock rise and falls segments of weekend shows.

    You wanna know how to get some transparency in football. THIS. It starts with the damn refs

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  5. It’s tough luck for the Dynamo, but the rule is pretty cut and dried. Doesn’t matter the reason – leave your technical area and get suspended. I think it’s important for the league to enforce rules – if only MLS referees would do the same.

    Reply
    • B.S. There are rules MLS can use when they deem fit. There are rules that can be interpreted. This is clearly not what was the spirit of the rule when it was created.

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  6. This is an instance where style is being put over substance. He seemed to be trying to separate the teams — to avoid their own fights and suspensions (job done but he gets the suspension instead) — and it’s an exceptional circumstance involving a team that was fined extra for repeated altercations this year. A fine would have sent the message.

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  7. Absolutely ridiculous if anyone thinks the league suspended Kinnear to help the Red Bulls. Oh, the coach can’t sit on the sideline? Big deal. Stop the conspiracy theories and shut up.

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  8. This is BULLSH*T and the SADDEST thing is that your NOT going to hear any contradicting stories questioning the legitimacy of MLS’ ruling on the matter from main steam media outlets or supposed “independent” sites like this one.

    Dom Kinnear left his seat to calm HIS players down!! How many times have we seen in the NBA or other professional sports arenas, where coaches have gone beyond their boundaries for the good of their players and others, and NOT be reprimanded because the circumstances permitted circumventing the rule.

    This is total BS and this is just step further in guaranteeing that The New Jersey Sludge get their filthy hands on a title in MLS’s hopes that they can have a substantial rival when Manchester/NY FC fields their team and it not be a debacle like the LA teams.

    Whatever Dynamo fans there are not in the crowds might as well not tune in on the tv either. Better they boycott. At least give them a reason to call themselves fans

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  9. The Kinnear suspension is very phishy. We know the league wants Redbull to win a trophy before NYCFC comes in.

    Kinnear was trying to stop the debacle, not further damage the situation.

    Not good by the league office.

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  10. Does this suspension really affect anything for Dom? Is there anything to stop him from putting n a Burger King drive thru headset and pulling the strings remotely?

    Reply
    • FIFA Rules which say you can’t do that. He’s to have no communication with the players or coaching staff at the stadium, during the game, halftime, after the game he’s good though.

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    • He’ll be in communication. All the staff and aids they have going back and forth I’m sure he’ll be able to get his word in

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  11. Suspend Kinnear for trying to tamp down the fracas? What sense does that make? I could see a perfunctory fine but a suspension is ridiculous.

    Reply
      • Basic rule that isn’t observed anywhere else in the world. He was calming his players down, it’s absolute BS.

      • You are joking right. Look into how many times Schallibaum was suspended for leaving the technical area. MLS is pretty consistent on this…

  12. From the MLS site’s clip on the incident, it looks like Kinnear was trying to calm things down. Yes, he shouldn’t leave the box, but the officials were having trouble controlling the situation.

    If I ran Montreal, those guys would be given one-way tickets out of there. I wouldn’t want guys like that on my team.

    Reply
      • No, fighting should be punished and coaches who join in should be banned. It is the only way to reduce the ugliness that some thugs perpetrate. If anything earlier and more punitive rewards for bad behavior are called for, not some whine about how this benefits a team not even involved in the incident.

      • Didn’t look to me like Kinnear “joined in” so much as left his technical area to get his players to cool down and basically to think about the next game. I thought Kinnear was trying to calm the situation down and prevent his players from fighting/getting red carded.

        Still, I guess MLS has a rule about coaches leaving their technical area, so a violation is a violation.

      • If you’re saying Kinnear joined the brawl, you clearly didn’t watch it. He left the technical area purely to try to help deflate an escalating situation (and successfully so, at that, since, you know, none of his players got sent off by the ref or retroactively suspended by the DC).

        It’s a joke though to say RBNY get shafted by the league, when they (along with LA and Seattle) are the beneficiaries of demonstrable special treatment from MLS…like always getting the most experienced refs in all their matches, and having 19 nationally televised matches (including 2 against a pathetic DC side and one against Chivas USA) as to RSL’s 3, when RSL has been the most consistently quality team in the league in the past 5 seasons…

  13. Romero should have been handed a longer suspension than Di Vaio. I don’t justify, but I can at least understand Di Vaio’s heat of the moment actions, when pushing and showing started. Romero’s actions are another matter. Down 3-0, with less than a minute go and no chance for his team to win, he instigated the brawl designed to get players of the team that advanced suspended. There is no excuse for pushing somebody to the ground and then kicking him in the groin right in front of the linesman.

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  14. Wow. Kinnear’s suspension may undermine whatever home-field advantage the Dynamo might have enjoyed on Sunday.

    I find MLS fines so quaint sometimes. $250?

    Reply

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