Sir Alex Ferguson Praises Howard Webb: Hit With FA Charge

In a frankly ludicrous twist to the revived ”Respect” campaign, who’s bedraggled corpse was wheeled out by the FA to victimise Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson has been hit with an FA charge for making “improper conduct” in the build up to our massive, almost title-deciding 2-1 win over Chelsea at the weekend.

He has broken some rules which state that no manager should speak about the referee before a game. He was quoted as saying, “We are getting the best referee, no doubt about that”.

This charge comes in spite of Ancelotti being quoted as saying, “I don’t want to put pressure on the referee. Howard Webb is a fantastic referee, he has the skills to handle the occasion. If the referee has no experience, maybe I can be a little bit worried about this, but with Webb there is no problem.”

Despite being a comment directly about Howard Webb, both made and widely reported in the run-up to the same match, the FA have not deemed this to be improper conduct and Carlo Ancelotti is not facing a similar charge.

I am sick of this. It’s absolutely laughable.

Football clubs and managers up and down the country are getting away with doing and saying what they like, but everything that anyone associated with Manchester United says or does is placed under the microscope, picked apart for possible breaches of the rules, and then thrown back at us.

This latest example of hypocrisy is perhaps the most laughable of them all. I’m not even sure anyone in the media, United’s bete-noir, had noticed that there might be some rule somewhere that Ferguson had broken when he praised Howard Webb for being a good referee.

I’m even more at a loss to explain how Ferguson’s comments constitute a breach of the rules, but Ancelotti's are apparently acceptable.

It’s time for the FA to come out and admit that they make an example out of Manchester United. We can then call them tossers and get on with our lives. Instead, they continue to delude themselves into believing that they are only handing out justice and that the examples set by the professionals are bad examples to “grass roots footballers.”

Yet, here we have an example of two managers in agreement that the best referee has been chosen for the occasion, and yet the FA bring the game into disrepute by charging the Manchester United party, but not the opposing party.

Yet people call us paranoid?

We’ve sucked up an eight month ban for Rio Ferdinand when the precedent had already been set by the slap on the wrist handed out to a Manchester City player for the same offence.

We’ve sucked up a two match ban for our star striker for committing an offence hundreds of players are demonstrably guilty of every week.

We’ve sucked up a five match ban handed out to our manager for negative comments made about a referee, when other managers receive fines or one match bans.

We’ve been told that Mario Balotelli can celebrate in front of away fans but Gary Neville cannot.

We’ve been told that other clubs’ players can get sent off in friendlies and then play in the season opener, but ours are banned.

We’ve been told that only Manchester United players aren’t allowed to elbow opponents.

What are we supposed to do? Thank the FA?