Hot water: Luis Suarez landed in hot water over his gesture to the Fulham fans

'The system has been in operation for many years and meets the demands of the domestic game.

'The FA's system allows clubs to make a claim of wrongful dismissal - to reduce a sanction to zero - or appeal the severity of a sanction, both of these processes are dealt with prior to the player's next fixture.

'UEFA chooses to operate a different process for European matches, based on a sliding scale, under which each sanction is determined individually by a disciplinary panel.

'In any event a minimum one game ban will always be applied by UEFA.

'This process meets the demands of UEFA football where the period between fixtures is greater than that in the domestic game.'

Still, there is an argument to say the FA should have accepted Rooney's punishment given, if they had received a similar appeal for a domestic incident, the suspension would have been increased to four matches if it had been deemed frivolous.

Rooney himself had admitted his actions during the 2-2 draw in Podgorica were 'stupid'.

It is believed the FA pointed out that a three-match ban that affects games in the finals of a major tournament is a harsher sanction than a suspension of a similar length which would just affect matches in a qualifying tournament.

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