Moyes handed derby charge
27 Nov 2007 - 11:55:01
The Football Association has charged David Moyes for comments the Everton manager made about referee Mark Clattenberg following last month's controversial Merseyside derby at Goodison Park.
The FA charge states that: "It is alleged that the comments made referring to referee Mark Clattenberg on each respective occasion amount to improper conduct as they call into question Mr Clattenberg's integrity and/or imply that Mr Clattenberg was motivated by bias."
Moyes was furious with the official's decision to send Tony Hibbert off and his refusal to award the Toffees a late penalty when Jamie Carragher tangled with Joleon Lescott.
Moyes had said after his side's 2-1 defeat to Liverpool in which the Reds were
awarded two penalties: "I'm not convinced about the first penalty. It was the coming together of two players.
"Steven Gerrard's arm goes across Tony Hibbert's before they come together and I think Gerrard slipped. Tony Hibbert did not make a tackle.
"The referee pulls out a yellow card and then the Liverpool captain has a word with him and then it becomes a red.
"The decisions he has made happen in football games, you sometimes get them or sometimes you don't. But what we get in the last second of the game was a chance for it to be corrected and it was a result we deserved.
"A point was what we deserved, if not more and he does not give the penalty kick. If the other one has been more blatant than that one then I am in the wrong game.
"Referees do their job as best they can. I have tried very hard in the past year not to talk about referees. We have had referees into training and we are very supportive.
"They have a tough job, but do they understand how tough my job is and what it would have meant for us to get those points in the bag.
"There are now a couple of players banned. We understand what happened to Phil Neville, that was correct, but we got no decisions at all.
"It can't just be me being bitter. People asked was the referee biased and I can't comment, but we got nothing at all."
