Why did Bruno escape when Mitrovic didn’t

So Fulham’s striker, Aleksandar Mitrovic, is expecting to get a lengthy ban for manhandling an official, but Man United captain, Bruno Fernandes, gets away scot free for the same offence?

Talk about double standards!

However, that’s exactly what we’ve seen from the Football Association this week, and these decisions, which seem to always favour big clubs, need to be stopped.

Of course, Mitrovic was absolutely in the wrong during his side’s FA Cup tie at Old Trafford, and he will have to take his medicine. The BBC report that the FA suggest a standard ban is ‘clearly insufficient’ in this instance.

There can be no excuse for the threatening manner in which he approached the match official, Chris Kavanagh, who was well within his rights to brandish a straight red card, even if that was like a red rag to a bull, Mitrovic eventually having to be pulled away by team-mates.

In what was Man United’s worst result for decades, the Red Devils were recently humbled 7-0 at arch rivals, Liverpool.

During that game, United captain, Fernandes, consistently lost his head, culminating with a push on one of the officials, Adam Nunn, as the ball had gone out for a throw in.

On that occasion, not even a yellow card was produced by the man in the middle and, importantly, no retrospective action was taken.

How is that even possible?

Even if one takes the view that if it may not have been in the referees report, the FA are powerless to intervene, everyone watching the game saw what happened live on TV.

Ref Support UK even said at the time that he should be handed a five-game ban.

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There needs to be some sort of consistency from the powers that be in order that the guidelines are kept to and followed, with no room for manoeuvre.

If decisions like the two examples above continue to go the way of the bigger teams in the division, it makes a mockery of the league’s integrity and that of its officials.