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French Star's 'Stain' on English Soccer
By Ian Thomsen International Herald Tribune

Friday, January 27, 1995
The future of soccer's most passionate and distressing star is in doubt after the English Football Association charged Eric Cantona, the Frenchman forward who plays for Manchester United, with "misconduct bringing the game into disrepute" for attacking a spectator during a Premier League match.
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Cantona was given 14 days to explain his flying two-footed kick, which set off a fistfight with the spectator Wednesday night at Selhurst Park during United's 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace. It was thought to be the first time that a player in English professional soccer had attacked a spectator.
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"What happened last night was a stain on our game," the FA's chief executive, Graham Kelly, said at a packed news conference Thursday. "If any offense is proved, the player concerned is bound to face a severe punishment."
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English newspapers were speculating that Cantona faces anything from suspension for the rest of this season to a lifetime ban from English soccer.
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He also may face criminal assault charges. Scotland Yard, which polices the London area, said it was continuing its investigation and would interview a large number of spectators about Cantona and his teammate, Paul Ince, who allegedly also threw a punch after being doused with tea and racial abuse as officials and teammates were pulling Cantona away.
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The French Football Federation's president, Claude Simonet, who has feuded with the rebellious Cantona, said the 28- year-old forward probably would be stripped of his captaincy of the French national team at the very least. As host of the 1998 World Cup, France had been trying to build a contender around Cantona, who has scored 20 goals in 45 games for his country.
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He has led his club teams, Leeds United in 1992 and then Manchester United, to the last three English championships.
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"Unfortunately, I think Eric Cantona will have to be taken off the French team," Simonet told Reuters Television. "I'm saying unfortunately because he is a man of great talent.
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"Such behavior is not compatible with the example a high-level sportsman like Eric Cantona should set. Eric Cantona has only himself to blame."
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FIFA, the international soccer federation, said in a statement: "We deplore such an action, especially considering that FIFA is carrying out a 'fair play' campaign and is trying to get fair play respected on the pitch."
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Manchester United officials, while declining comment, said the club's directors would meet to decide whether Cantona should play in the team's FA Cup fourth- round match Saturday against second-division Wrexham.
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"We are confident that Manchester United will meet their responsibilities," said the FA's Kelly.
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Neither FIFA nor UEFA, the European soccer federation, will penalize Cantona unless sanctions are requested by England, where Cantona's career was resuscitated three years ago. Just last spring, the English were lauding him as the first foreigner to win their player of the year award.
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The incident began three minutes into the second half of the match against Crystal Palace, when Cantona kicked out at opposing defender Richard Shaw. That resulted in a red card and ejection for Cantona, his fifth since joining United two seasons ago. Television pictures showed the 6-foot, 162-pound Cantona in his black visiting uniform, walking alongside the grandstand when he turned and lunged back at a ground-level fan who apparently had been shouting abuse at him from the front row of the stands.
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Cantona clumsily launched a horizontal, two-footed kick, landing hard on a short fence as the spectator was knocked backward. Cantona, regaining his balance, began throwing punches. A short exchange ensued as officials, players and coaches arrived to pull Cantona away.
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The police said two Crystal Palace fans gave statements alleging assault by Cantona and Ince. The FA planned no charges against Ince or other players, Kelly said.
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In what has been a scandalous season for English soccer, the FA has responded cautiously to allegations of match-fixing, drug abuse and kick-backs. But Kelly appeared much more firm this time.
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"I am left with a very upsetting and disturbing feeling, looking at the pictures in the morning papers, the young children around this incident - young girl and a boy in a Manchester United shirt," Kelly said. "These are terribly graphic pictures of the incident which brings shame on football, no doubt whatsoever."
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As players are expected to swallow abuse from the fans who pay their salaries, the severity of Cantona's suspension may depend on the tone of his appeal. The last time he was in such a mess, while playing for the French team Nimes in 1991, he had thrown the ball at the referee, stomped off without the permission of a red card and attacked an opponent in the locker room. When members of that disciplinary committee asked for an explanation, he walked up to each one and called him an "idiot." His suspension was doubled to two months, and he announced his retirement at 25.
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By then he had already played for six French clubs. At Auxerre, his first club, he was fined for punching his team's goalkeeper and was suspended three months for a dangerous tackle. He made two tours there and also at Marseille, where even the latter's volatile owner, Bernard Tapie, couldn't abide the sight of Cantona throwing his jersey at his coach during a charity match. In 1988, Cantona compared the French national team's coach, Henri Michel, to excrement; that resulted in a one- year suspension. In 1989, with Montpellier, after a distressing loss to Lille, he was suspended from two matches for hitting a teammate over the head with his playing shoe.
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Cantona's passions and imaginings have long been cheered by his fans and damned by those authorized to tell him what to do. He is a painter, a poet, a motorcyclist philosopher in a French-Kerouac sort of way, but soccer people can only be so understanding. So it was in February 1992, when he joined Leeds, which went on to win its first English title in 18 years; a few months later its manager, Howard Wilkinson, was unloading his Cantona headache to United for a pittance of £1.2 million.
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"I was told I was taking a risk, but you gamble on every player," Manchester United's manager, Alex Ferguson, said shortly after taking on Cantona. "You may as well gamble on one who lifts people out of their seats."
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United, which hadn't won the English championship since 1967, jumped into contention for a third straight Premier League title last Sunday, when the Frenchman scored the game's lone goal to cut Blackburn's league lead to just two points.
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Ferguson has been able to overlook Cantona's many fines and suspensions over the last two years - for spitting, for bookings, for accusing the referee of taking bribes - but he may not be allowed to exercise such understanding again.
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