Wigan chairman Dave Whelan is facing the likelihood of a ban from the Football Association after accepting a misconduct charge over comments he made regarding Jewish and Chinese people.

Whelan, 78, will be writing a letter in mitigation to the FA after requesting a non-personal hearing which will decide on the sanction.

He has admitted an aggravated misconduct charge after a newspaper interview defending his decision to appoint Malky Mackay as the club's new manager. Mackay is the subject of an investigation into alleged racist and anti-Semitic texts sent while he was in charge of Cardiff.

Whelan told the Guardian it was ''nothing'' to call a Chinese person a ''chink'' and stated: ''Jewish people do chase money more than everybody else.''

An FA spokesman said: "We can confirm Mr Whelan has accepted the charge and has requested a non-personal hearing but no date has been set for that."

A ban of a couple of months looks likely as the offence is comparable to a four-month ban handed out to a senior Northumberland FA official who made derogatory and sexist comments about female referees. Whelan's admission and letter of mitigation may see a lesser sanction imposed.

Whelan has previously indicated he would resign if the FA even suggested he was guilty of using racist language.

He told ITV News in November: "If the FA look into my affairs and they were to find me guilty, which I hope they don't - and I don't see anything like that happening because I'm absolutely anti-racist, always have been, always will be - however, if they have any questions I'm willing to answer it and should they even suggest I'm guilty, I would immediately resign from my position as chairman of Wigan Athletic.''

In charging Whelan on November 27, the FA said: "It is alleged the Wigan Athletic chairman breached FA Rule E3[1] in that his comments were abusive and/or insulting and/or constitute improper conduct and/or bring the game into disrepute.

''It is further alleged that this is an 'aggravated breach' as defined by FA Rule E3[2] as it included a reference to ethnic origin and/or race and/or nationality and/or religion or belief.''

The FA is still investigating a series of texts sent between Mackay and the former head of recruitment at Cardiff, Iain Moody, which it is alleged were discriminatory in nature. It has been reported that the FA may not be able to act against Mackay, should the texts be deemed as private correspondence.

Cardiff owner Vincent Tan was hugely critical of Whelan's decision to appoint Mackay as successor to Uwe Rosler, telling BBC Sport that it was a case of a "racist chairman hiring a racist manager".

Both Whelan and Mackay have strongly denied that they are racist.