Players can be red-carded for swearing at referees.
Coaches can be expelled from their dug-outs for abusing the officials. Now even the tannoy men are being gagged. Richards was forced to resign after he attacked Millwall manager Mark McGhee when the two teams met on 6 January 2001. McGhee had walked out on Reading in 1994 and Richards urged the home fans to give him a barracking. Richards is not the first tannoy man to lose his job for expressing his views too strongly.