Fraser Fined, Nowak Fined and Suspended by MLS

On Thursday, Major League Soccer announced their sanctions following last week's contentious match between Chivas USA and the Philadelphia Union. Union coach Peter Nowak was ejected from the match after Gabriel Farfan's tackle late in the second half Saturday on James Riley led to a skirmish between the teams in front of Philadelphia's bench. Nowak entered the field and seemed eager to fight Chivas players, which made little sense considering his own player nearly seriously injured a Chivas player. As a result of his actions, MLS has suspended Nowak an additional game beyond the required one-match ban, meaning he'll be missing the next two games. He's also been fined $5,000 for his actions, and the Union have been fined another $5,000.

Chivas coach Robin Fraser has also been fined, as he crossed the center line of the field, and left his designated area, to the tune of $500. The club has been fined $2,500 "for the behavior of their players and staff." I suppose that's fair, as conditions got pretty heated pretty quickly, and fortunately no all-out fights broke out on the field.

Here's my issue with this: no additional penalty for Farfan, for his tackle and shenanigans after making the tackle. It was a dangerous tackle that cracked Riley's shinguard - he is very fortunate he wasn't really hurt on the play. Then Farfan got up and head-butted Ryan Smith, spent a couple minutes arguing about the call, and had to be "escorted" off the field by Dan Kennedy, who was playing in the other half of the field.

I don't think MLS needs to go all nuclear about the incident in the end, but should Farfan have to sit a couple of extra games? Hell yes.

Is this the kind of play MLS wants to encourage? Because if they don't punish him further, they are effectively sanctioning horror tackles, at least until the next guy gets his leg or ankle snapped.

What do you think? Leave a comment below!

Update: Farfan's suspension was announced after this post was written. Read more here.