Fergie will be watching the next five games from the stands
Sir Alex Ferguson has been suspended for five matches and handed a £30,000 fine following comments he made about referee Martin Atkinson after the 2-1 defeat at Cheslea.
In his post match interivew after game Ferguson said:
“I feared the worst [when seeing Atkinson had been chosen as referee]”
“You want a fair referee, or a strong referee anyway – and we didn’t get that.”
Ferguson was fuming with Atkinson after the Bradford born referee awarded a controversial penalty to Chelsea and failed to give David luiz a second yellow card for a blatant foul on Wayne Rooney.
Such was Fergie’s fury that following the defeat to Liverpool a few days later, the United manager refused to speak to press at all, including United’s very own MUTV.
Ferguson already had a two match ban hanging over him for claiming referee Alan Wiley was “unfit” after the 2-2 draw with Sunderland at Old Trafford last season. So the FA have imposed that along with another 3 match ban.
The five match touchline ban means Fergie will be watching from the stands for the FA Cup semi-final with Manchester City at Wembley as well as Premier League clashes with Bolton, West Ham, Fulham and Everton.
Although the ban is hardly ideal for such a series of important games, with Mickey Phelan the man repsonsible for doing most of the sideline shouting, it shouldn’t have too much of an impact.
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From what I’ve seen of the fallout from this, it says a lot when fans of Arsenal, Birmingham, Everton etc, stick up for fergie…
With the exception of the most bitter Liverpool/City/Chelsea fans, everyone is slagging off the FA and agree they are beginning to get so high on that horse of theirs, they may soon be in danger of falling off into some shit.
‘It is mandatory to give an interview after games, but you know, for the sake of embarassment, please say what we want you to say.’
He should have just head butted Martin Atkinson like Gattusso did to Joe Jordan.
That only carries a 4 match ban.
Fergie wasn’t given a 5 match ban – it was only 3 – but because he’s a serial offender his previously parked 2 match ban was activated and added on to this 3 match ban.