MIDDLESBROUGH skipper Paul Ince yesterday accused the FA of wanting players to "walk out with handbags and wearing lipstick''!

Ince's outburst followed the failure of his appeal against the red card he received for pushing Sunderland striker Niall Quinn in the face in the derby game at the Riverside Stadium last week.

"This is a man's game - unless the FA wants us to walk out with handbags, wearing lipstick,'' blasted Ince.

"People like Chopper Harris and Tommy Smith wouldn't have lasted two minutes the way the game is run now.

"Fans want to see passion, nothing malicious, not like Graham Le Saux's tackle on Danny Mills, which was naughty, but proper passion.

"You can sometimes mis-time tackles by a fraction when going for a ball yet still get booked. That's not football anymore."

Referee Mark Halsey dismissed Ince days before Dermot Gallagher issued only a caution to Leeds striker Robbie Keane for a similar offence against Manchester United's David Beckham.

Gallagher has since paid the price for his leniency by being demoted for a spell from the Premiership list.

But Ince, who will miss Boro's visits to Aston Villa and Blackburn and the home game in between against Ipswich, yesterday rallied to Gallagher's defence.

The Banbury official's next game is a week on Saturday, when he takes charge of the Second Division fixture between Reading and Bristol City.

"I'm devastated for him," said Ince. "I think he's one of the top referees in the game.

"He's taken the incident for what it was in a high-pressure game; it's Manchester United v Leeds at Old Trafford, Becks takes a swipe at Keane and I can understand Keane's reaction.

"But what the referee did was common sense - he wondered what was to be gained by sending anyone off.

"I don't think you should demote someone of Gallagher's class - there are referees in the Premiership who are not fit to lace his boots.''

On his quarrel with Quinn, Ince told Boro's website: "There was nothing malicious about it. It wasn't a punch or a two-footed tackle and no-one was thrown to the ground.

"It was just a little shove. He had elbowed me, by accident I think, and I pushed his face and he didn't make a reaction, which is the kind of bloke Niall is.

"He even came out in the papers and said that it was a bit harsh, which I thank him for. Niall was given a yellow card, but what I did was no worse than anything he did, so why did I get red?

"No-one likes to get sent off, but if you are going to get sent off for the first time in English domestic football you may as well get sent off for doing something, not for pushing and shoving.

"The way referees are handing out cards like confetti it is taking the passion out of the game.

"I watched the game on Monday night between Blackburn and Leicester, refereed by the same referee who sent me off.

"He gave out eight yellow cards, when maybe only three were justified. I think sometimes referees want to be bigger than footballers. Not all of them, because I think Paul Durkin, for instance, is a fantastic referee. But I think some referees in the game now, with a professional status, want to try to make a name for themselves."

l Agent Gianni Paladini has admitted fabricating quotes attributed to Fabrizio Ravanelli after the former Boro striker's furious confrontation with Chelsea's Marcel Desailly at Derby on Sunday.

France defender Desailly claimed the Italian insulted him "150,000 times'' during the game in which both players were booked.

Ravanelli,who returns to the Riverside for the first time on Saturday, was reported to have launched a tirade at Chelsea.

But yesterday he distanced himself from the remarks. "After the Chelsea game I went home to my family and switched off my phone, making it difficult for journalists to talk to me," he said.

"It is important for me to be in the newspapers only for scoring goals for Derby. Whatever happened during the Chelsea game is over and I am concentrating on the match against Middlesbrough this weekend.''

Paladini, one of the middlemen in the deal which brought Brazilian Juninho to Boro six years ago, has confessed he "misinterpreted the feelings" of Ravanelli.

"I was upset about the incident with Desailly and made the decision to comment to a reporter on behalf of Fabrizio," he said.

"I appreciate now that I misrepresented Fabrizio and misinterpreted his feelings on the issue. I can only apologise to the player and Derby County for the way I handled the situation."

* Boro's Stuart Parnaby has been named in the England Under-20 squad for the friendly with Portugal at Southampton on Wednesday, November 21.

* Liverpool and Christian Ziege will face a Premier League hearing in the new year on charges that both parties were guilty of rule breaches when the German international, now with Tottenham, moved from Middlesbrough to Anfield in a £5.5m deal at the start of last season

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