Manchester United’s Sir Alex Ferguson Faces 5-Game Touchline Ban

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson said some quite naughty things in the aftermath of his side's 2-1 defeat away to Chelsea two weeks, essentially accusing referee Martin Atkinson of bias for failing to send of David Luiz for a second yellow card after the Brazilian defender had deliberately gone through Wayne Rooney in an off-the-ball challenge. While Ferguson had a case to be aggrieved there - the game was still 1-1 at that point and Chelsea going down to ten men would have surely had an effect on the eventual outcome, making that sort of accusation is a big no-no.

As a result, the FA slapped a misconduct charge on the veteran manager, which Ferguson elected to fight. Unsurprisingly, he lost, and as a result he's been banned from the touchline for no less than three matches, as well as seeing a two-match suspended sentence come into force. A £30,000 fine is on the cards as well, although the club will probably cover that for him. Ferguson has two days in which he can launch an appeal, but if that fails he'll be missing home matches against Everton, Bolton, and Fulham as well as two visits to London - a trip to West Ham United and rather more importantly the FA Cup semifinal against Manchester City.