Two-match Ban for Ferguson As Drogba is Suspended for Three

The Football Association yesterday gave Sir Alex Ferguson a two-match touchline ban and a £10,000 fine for abusing a referee, fined David Moyes £5,000 for a similar offense and banned Didier Drogba for three games - including Chelsea's televised game against Arsenal - for throwing a coin at Burnley fans during last week's Carling Cup tie at Stamford Bridge.

Ferguson's punishment follows the Manchester United manager's criticisms of Mike Dean after his side's 4-3 win over Hull City this month. He was angry that Michael Turner had not received a second yellow card for a foul on Michael Carrick and that Hull were awarded a penalty for a Rio Ferdinand challenge on Bernard Mendy the manager felt was innocuous.

The 66-year-old's suspension starts on December 2, meaning that he will miss the Carling Cup quarter-final against Blackburn Rovers the following night - when Greater Manchester police have unusually agreed to United playing at home at the same time as Manchester City, who are scheduled to play Paris St-Germain in the Uefa Cup that night - followed by a Premier League match at home to Sunderland on December 6.

Ferguson was also banned for two matches, and fined £5,000, last season for using "insulting words" against Mark Clattenburg during a game against Bolton. In his absence his side lost to West Ham before beating Birmingham City 1-0.

Moyes, meanwhile, was fined and "warned as to his future conduct" for his behavior during Everton's 3-2 league win at Stoke City in September, when Alan Wiley sent him to the stands for his reaction to his side not being awarded a possible penalty. Drogba's punishment starts immediately and rules him out of league matches against Newcastle and Bolton, as well as the Arsenal game. He could now be fined by his club, who had been waiting to hear the result of his disciplinary hearing. The Chelsea chairman, Bruce Buck, said they were "not happy" with his actions.

Barcelona's former Manchester United defender Gerard Piqué suggested yesterday that Ferguson was unlucky anyone could make enough sense of his comments to be offended by them. Admitting that he "got lost a little bit in the team talks" during his time in England, Piqué said: "The gaffer used a very Scottish kind of English that might as well have been Chinese as far as I was concerned. But I wasn't the worst - there are players in the current squad who still don't understand him."

Piqué, who returned from Manchester to his boyhood club in the summer for a fee of around £6m, also criticized his former team-mates' diet. "It was outrageous," he said. "Everyone ate whatever they wanted to eat and, when you think about the typical English diet, you can imagine what I am talking about.

"Every 15 days they would put us on what we called the 'spare-tyre machine' to measure our body fat. You would be amazed at how many top players practically broke the machine because their diet was based on beer and burgers."