Wayne Shaw is an overweight man in his mid 40s who likes to eat pies. We are all Wayne Shaw.
Sadly for overweight pie eaters everywhere, Shaw was fined and banned for two months from doing a job he was fired from eight months ago — all for eating pie.
For those who don’t remember an obscure incident during an FA Cup match in February, Wayne Shaw was Sutton’s 45-year-old backup goalkeeper/goalie coach when he decided to eat a pie during a cup tie against Arsenal. We’re sure it was delicious, but it cost him his job. Now it has cost him $489.
The English Football Association banned and fined Shaw after an independent review found him guilty of influencing betting markets on Wednesday. Not quite match fixing, but still a fairly serious crime in a sport trying to rid itself of all corruption.
Wayne Shaw has been fined and banned for two months for breaching FA betting rules.https://t.co/nLvrw8SzCM pic.twitter.com/f0QEwgF7GS
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) September 6, 2017
Shaw ate the pie in the 83rd minute after a British bookmaker offered odds on the corpulent keeper consuming a pie. A hearing on Wednesday ruled Shaw intentionally ate the pie because of the bet, a charge he denied.
The punishment was probably appropriate. The suspension is meaningless because Shaw resigned immediately following “pie-gate” in February.
“I've been through depression,” Shaw said in May. “I wasn't sleeping right, I could feel myself getting stressed. And I've still got that knot in my stomach.”
Fortunately, Shaw, now that this is over we have the perfect solution for that knot in your stomach: more pie, obviously.