West Ham have been found guilty of breaching FA rules following the crowd violence at their Carling Cup match against Millwall in August and now face a number of sanctions that include fines - quite likely - and being forced to play games behind closed doors. Millwall have been cleared of all charges however and both clubs have had charges of failing to prevent racist behaviour by fans declared as ''not proven'' by an disciplinary panel.

I'm not entirely sure what investigations the panel took to ensure the racist chants were 'unproven' but I assume speaking to Carlton Cole wasn't one of them (and this is by no means attempting to tar Millwall fans alone - there was racist chanting in the other direction too) and there's a feeling this difficult charge has been brushed under the carpet as it so often is in the world game.

Nevertheless, the FA's independent regulatory commission did find West Ham guilty of two charges: failure to ensure their supporters refrained from violent, threatening, obscene and provocative behaviour, and failure to ensure their supporters did not enter the field of play and, whatever the arguments about how a club can actually ensure that scenes like those that occured in August can reasonably be prevented, I'm not really surprised by the outcome and can't see what the club can do to refute the decision.

We await the huge fine that will undoubtably be passed down and the following speculation that the Hammers will have to sell everyone to pay the bill.