No personal hearing for Souness

Newcastle boss Graeme Souness will not defend himself in person as he fights an FA charge of bringing the game into disrepute.

The 52-year-old Scot today formally denied a breach of Rule E3 – “a failure to act in the best interests of the game and/or having brought the game into disrepute” – over his post-match comments on the performance of referee Barry Knight following his side’s 2-0 defeat at Everton on May 7.

However, Souness has not requested a personal hearing and will leave an FA disciplinary commission to decide his fate over the next few weeks.

Souness did request a personal hearing the last time he fell foul of disciplinary chiefs when he berated referee Howard Webb over his handling of the Magpies’ 4-1 home defeat by Fulham on November 7 last year and was hit with a charge of using improper conduct towards a match official.

On that occasion, he later decided against attending the hearing, citing pressure of work on Tyneside, and was ultimately fined £10,000 and handed a one-game touchline ban.

His latest alleged misdemeanour came after Knight, who had sent off three of his players – Kieron Dyer and Lee Bowyer for fighting each other and Steven Taylor – during a 3-0 home defeat by Aston Villa on April 2 and awarded the visitors two penalties, proved a central figure once again at Goodison Park.

Souness had no argument with the official’s decision to dismiss Shola Ameobi for aiming a blow at Tim Cahill but he did question his award of the free-kick which led to Everton’s first goal.

“The referee was apologising to some of our lads before the game for the penalty he gave in that Aston Villa match,” he said during his post-match press conference. “It was outside the box and he said that.

“That was the game when we had three players sent off out of extreme frustration. But Mr Knight escaped without any criticism that day and this time, he has given a free-kick to Everton that wasn’t and it changed the game.

“There were other decisions he got wrong. We feel hard done by again because of Mr Knight. I won’t defend Ameobi for what he did and when he was sent off, the game was over, but (Jean-Alain) Boumsong says it wasn’t a foul on (Marcus) Bent when they scored their first.”