Ailing Premier League champions Leicester City suffered a blow yesterday as England striker Jamie Vardy received a three-match ban from the Football Association (FA) for his sending off against Stoke City.
The 29-year-old, who had returned to form in dramatic style with a hat-trick against Manchester City 10 days ago to end a three month scoring drought, will miss matches against Everton, West Ham and Middlesbrough. The FA rejected the club’s claim of wrongful dismissal which hinged upon Vardy being off balance as he was harried by Glen Johnson when he challenged Stoke forward Mame Diouf just before the half-hour mark. Referee Craig Pawson did not hesitate in showing him a red card for the two-footed challenge.
It was the third time in Vardy’s career he had been sent for an early shower. Vardy’s suspension means Leicester will be without three key players for the game with Everton next Monday.
Defenders Christian Fuchs and Robert Huth will be absent as they each serve a one-match suspension for picking up their fifth bookings of the campaign in Saturday’s ill-tempered Stoke match. They were two of five Leicester players to be booked by Pawson in the final seven minutes of the first half — leading to angry scenes at the break with the referee exiting surrounded by security personnel — in a match which saw them come from 2-0 down to secure a 2-2 draw.
Ironically, Pawson had been criticised for not sending off Manchester United defender Marcos Rojo for a similar two-footed challenge in their Premier League clash with Crystal Palace only a few days prior to the Vardy incident.
Leicester currently sit a lowly 15th in the table, just three points clear of the relegation places.

Shelvey banned for
racial abuse
England international midfielder Jonjo Shelvey has been banned for five games after he was found guilty of using racially abusive language by an independent panel yesterday.
The 24-year-old — who won the last of his six caps in 2015 — was also fined £100,000 ($123,000) for abusing Moroccan midfielder Romain Saiss during his side Newcastle United’s 2-0 defeat by Wolves in their second tier Championship clash in September.
Shelvey, who has been instrumental in Newcastle’s drive for an immediate return to the Premier League, was reported to the match referee by Saiss’s team-mates but he strongly denies making any such remarks.
The former Liverpool and Swansea midfielder, who has also been ordered to attend a FA education course, has seven days to appeal. Newcastle said they would wait to see the FA’s written judgement before ‘making any further comment on the matter’.

Ceferin warns Croatia on ‘drastic sanctions’
UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin yesterday warned Croatia it risked drastic sanctions for hooliganism which he labelled a key problem. “Unfortunately, Croatian football is not known only by excellent players but also by certain problems that need to be solved,” Ceferin told reporters in Zagreb.
“One is the problem with fans, incidents, which might result in drastic sanctions,” he said. Ceferin, who took over the UEFA helm in September, was speaking after meeting head of the Croatian Football Federation (HNS) Davor Suker and Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.
“I warned both prime minister and Davor that there is a serious possibility for the toughest sanctions,” he said without elaborating. Suker expressed hope that the state institutions, notably the judiciary and the interior ministry, would help the federation in the fight against fans’ violence.
“It is important that we get a fair and just law on hooligans,” Suker said. Ceferin said that Croatia’s other problem was its poor football infrastructure. The country has had a series of FIFA and UEFA sanctions over unruly fans known for throwing flares at matches, chanting fascist slogans and displaying pro-Nazi symbols.
Croatia were docked a point by UEFA after their fans painted a swastika on the pitch in Split ahead of their June 2015 qualifier with Italy. Croatia’s Euro 2016 match against the Czech Republic in France in June had to be suspended for a while over flare throwing.
Hooliganism has increased in Croatia over the past four years since Suker, a former international striker, took over as HNS president. Some fans believe Suker and the federation are too closely linked with controversial former Dinamo Zagreb boss Zdravko Mamic, a key figure in Croatian football.
The fans accuse Mamic, indicted this year in a multi-million-euro corruption case, of unfairly profiting from football and have staged protests against the national team in response.