It is the hooligans who bring football into disrepute, not Cantona : LE TTERS

From Mr Michael de Podesta Sir: The calls for the banning of Eric Cantona from the game are sheer hypocrisy: to respond violently under provocation is understandable, if regrettable. Cantona's greater offence was deliberately to foul a player in the gameitself.

All the furore is really about image, sponsorship and, ultimately, money. It is for potentially damaging the income, not the reputation, of the game that the FA will punish Cantona.

The systematic abuse of drugs in order to cheat at athletics incurs a four-year ban. I suggest that on any kind of scale of fairness, Cantona's (off-the-field) offence is at least one order of magnitude less significant.

Yours faithfully, MICHAEL DE PODESTA Twickenham, Middlesex