Melbourne City captain Aziz Behich faces a potential suspension of at least two A-League Men games for an incident involving Melbourne Victory striker Nikos Vergos that he wasn't sent off for at the time.
Behich has been issued a show-cause notice by Football Australia and has until Tuesday to deliver the match review panel any submissions over the incident and show he did not commit the offence of "assault on a player".
Late in the first half of Victory's 3-1 derby win over City at AAMI Park on Saturday night, Behich and Vergos were jostling for the ball when the Victory man went to ground.
Socceroos defender Behich stumbled back into Vergos but then stepped backwards, with his right foot planting in the striker's groin area.
At the time, Behich wasn't booked or sent off by referee Alex King.
But on Monday, FA's independent match review panel determined Behich committed an offence that "should have been sanctioned with a direct red card and which escaped the referee's attention".
"The MRP has issued Behich with a disciplinary notice to show cause why the offence of 'assault on a player (e.g. violent conduct when not challenging for the ball) or against any other person other than a match official, including an attempted assault' should not be found to have been committed," FA said in the statement.
"The MRP will reconvene tomorrow afternoon AEDT, Tuesday 29 October, to consider any submissions received on behalf of Behich and to determine whether Behich committed an offence and, if so, the proposed sanction."
If the MRP takes a dim view of the incident, Behich likely faces a multi-game suspension.
That is what awaits Macarthur assistant Christophe Gamel, with the panel determining he had committed "assault on a player, team official, spectator or any other person other than a match official (including physical or aggressive behaviour to such individuals)".
Gamel was shown a red card by referee Tim Danaskos following a post-game melee sparked by Newcastle's Dane Ingham.
The incident has been referred to the disciplinary and ethics committee to determine the length of the sanction, because the panel believed "a sanction of greater than four matches was warranted for the offence''.
Both the Jets and Bulls were issued team misconduct notices for their respective involvement in the post-match scuffle.
