Common Sense or Letter of the Law?

The main talking point of todays Premier League football games has to be West Ham's Frederic Piquionne getting himself sent off after scoring what many thought would be, the winning goal in their fixture away at Everton.

Now I haven't seen the incident yet so I cant give my final verdict on the situation, but my initial reaction when I heard about it was one of sympathy towards Frederic. Heres a player who's got himself what may well be the winning goal in a tie that they were expected to lose. Not only that, but 3 points today would have taken West Ham out of the bottom 3 for the first time in months, so you can understand why Piquionne has run into the stands to celebrate with the fans who have travelled all the way from London to Liverpool to see their side play. This doesn't seem excessive as a celebration because the passion and importance of the moment means that the only celebration that could out weigh that moment and seem excessive would be for Piquionne to have stripped down to his jockstrap and run a full lap of the pitch. Sharing a moment like that with the fans is quite a beautiful thing and shows to the fans that the players understand the importance of those moments to all who are involved in the club. For a referee to take that moment and turn it on its head by (what many will say), getting unnecessarily involved and putting a team down to 10 men for showing passion seems ridiculous at first. Not only that but West Ham then had to take their only other striker, Freddie Sears off for a defender in order to try and sure up their defences, so when Everton got the late equaliser the game as a competition was over.

However, you cant blame the referee for his actions. Yes it had a negative impact on the game and West Ham will feel robbed of 3 points but you have to say, players know the rules, and Piquionne knows that he's already been booked, and that excessive celebrations in the league today will result in another booking. Peter Walton is totally within the rules of the game to book him, and if its a second yellow the player has to go. Walton has produced 5 red cards in 5 games now so there is an argument that he may just be trying to grab some headlines in the papers tomorrow but that doesn't mean that he's not operating within the boundaries of the rules. It may lack common sense and Hammers fans will be livid with the decision for a long time, but it doesn't make the decision wrong.

The rules about celebrating are ridiculous and need to be changed because if players cant show their passion or pride for scoring then its almost like cutting emotion out of the game and something that no one wants, but as the rules stand players will be punished for these sort of actions and if referees want to keep to the law this will continue to happen. On this occasion Hammers fans shouldn't look to blame Peter Walton, but the rules of the game.