The FA has launched investigations into the two coin-throwing incidents at the West Ham/Arsenal and Fulham/Everton matches that took place over the weekend.
On Saturday, Fulham’s Claus Jensen was hit by a coin thrown by an Everton fan in their 1-0 victory at Craven Cottage and Gunners’ striker Robin van Persie was struck by 2p at Upton Park on Sunday during the Gunners’ 1-0 defeat.
An FA spokesman said "we will be looking at the referees’ reports and speaking to the relevant clubs. We want to see what steps the clubs are taking to identify who is responsible. The key thing is to identify those responsible and make sure they are dealt with appropriately."
Fulham boss Chris Coleman and West Ham manager Alan Pardew have both
called for some tough action against the perpetrators.
Coleman said: "I hope the offender is identified. It was a coward who
threw the coin. Send him to prison or somewhere away from football."
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time Everton fans have come under the spotlight. The Merseyside team were criticised over the abuse given to Joey Barton with regards to his brother. The result of the stick given was for Barton to flash his arse at them, but as usual, the Everton fans went unpunished. Obviously, David Moyes was first to condemn the coin throwing saying that "It’s unsavoury when that happens… they should be banned", which of course, they should.
Aside from managers calling for action, how do you stop these things from happening? The stewards don’t seem to be up to the job. As Joey Barton said when talking of the Everton fans, "If I can hear the abuse from thirty or forty yards away, why can’t the stewards hear it when they are stood a matter of metres away?" Of course, stewards are great at asking home fans to sit down when they’ve leapt up, but seemingly allow different rules to the away ends. A steward’s job is to watch the fans and keep tabs on trouble makers, but as this weekend has shown, two seperate incidents can go unnoticed with slack jawed stewards stood around… probably watching the game. [Mof Gimmers]