Harry Maguire has been handed an extra one-match suspension by the FA after accepting a charge linked to his dismissal in the draw with Bournemouth. The FA determined that his conduct breached regulation E3.1 and that he must miss Manchester United\u2019s trip to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n
Referee Stuart Attwell recorded that Maguire had \u201capproached\u201d fourth official Matthew Donohue \u201cto protest the decision\u201d as he left the pitch. Donohue\u2019s own report provided the fuller account: \u201cIn the 78th minute of the game, referee Stuart Attwell sent off Manchester United #5 Harry Maguire. After the VAR check was complete, Maguire, as he was leaving the field of play, approached me and shouted, \u2018You\u2019re a joke. You\u2019re all a f—–g joke.\u2019 I am reporting the matter to the Football Association for further review.\u201d<\/p>\n
The FA charge was brought under regulation E3.1, which addresses player and staff conduct. The rulebook states: \u201cA Participant shall at all times act in the best interests of the game and shall not act in any manner which is improper or brings the game into disrepute or use any one, or a combination of, violent conduct, serious foul play, threatening, abuse, indecent or insulting words or behavior.\u201d That was applied on top of the standard suspension for the red-card sending-off.<\/p>\n
Maguire was not required to attend the disciplinary hearing and accepted the additional charge, resulting in the one-match suspension and a fine. A statement submitted on his behalf said: \u201cI did not use abusive and\/or insulting words towards the fourth official or any other Match Official.\u201d He added: \u201cAs I left the field of play following my dismissal, I said something along the lines of \u2018it is a f—–g joke.\u2019 I am certain that I did not call the fourth official or any match official, a joke or use any other form of insult.\u201d<\/p>\n
A supporting witness, Joshua Zirkzee, said he did \u201cnot recall exactly what Harry said, but I recall that it was something along the lines of \u2018it is a joke\u2019 or \u2018what a joke.\u2019\u201d Donohue acknowledged it was possible he \u201cmisheard or mis-recollected\u201d being singled out as a \u201cjoke\u201d and said: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be able to respond to this with certainty,\u201d but he later remained firm that he heard the words aimed at the group of officials: \u201cI do remember hearing with clarity and remember thinking that the comment was aimed collectively at the group of officials. I would be prepared to say with certainty that these words were said.\u201d<\/p>\n
The FA sided with the match officials on the balance of probability, noting both Maguire and Zirkzee had limited recall of the exact language used. Maguire will miss Saturday night\u2019s trip with Manchester United to face Chelsea, a match that could all but guarantee Champions League qualification next season, or alternatively make the race to Europe a much more nervous one for the Red Devils.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FA discipline will see Maguire miss United’s trip to Chelsea after comments at Bournemouth. Saturday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11985,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,179,969],"tags":[1553,1393,1047],"class_list":["post-11986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-manchester-united","category-premier-league","tag-bookings","tag-centre-back","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}