IAN LADYMAN: Football has allowed the mob to rule for years and this ANARCHY is the result. Players manhandling referees, touchline tyrants haranguing officials - yet NO top-flight player sent off for swearing at ref in a decade. That must change

In modern professional football in this country, an unpalatable but nevertheless unquestionable truth has emerged. It is OK to aim abuse at a referee or match official using certain swear words but not others.

So it is pretty much OK to tell a referee in the Premier League to ‘f*** off’. If a player does that, he will generally be OK. If he uses stronger words — say for example one that begins with a ‘c’ — then he may not be OK.

Where exactly the line in the sand is drawn is not scientific.