Referee Mark Clattenburg has been asked to stand down as the FA began an investigation into allegations he used racially-motivated language towards Chelsea players.
Clattenburg, who had a highly controversial game at Stamford Bridge, has been accused by Chelsea of using inappropriate language towards two of their players, believed to be John Obi Mikel and Juan Mata, and will now miss next weekend's English Premier League games.
The accusation led to FA launching their investigation on the allegations, while the Professional Game Match Officials took their referee out of games for the next week.
"Professional Game Match Officials believe that, with any football match, the focus should not be on the officials but on the players and the game itself," it said in a statement.
"Mark Clattenburg is one of the elite referees in world football and, in these circumstances, the intense level of scrutiny would detract from the match and be unfair to the clubs and the supporters of both sides.
"Mark will co-operate fully and welcomes the opportunity for the facts to be established.
"No further comment will be made until this matter has been properly investigated."
Former English Premier League referee Henry Winter believes Clattenburg's career will be over if found guilty. "If a match official has used racial insults or language to a player then he's for the high jump," he told Radio 5 Live. "He won't be getting a four-match or an eight-match ban, it'll probably be the end of his career, but that is if indeed he did say anything."
"I feel it very unlikely that Mark Clattenburg would be allowed to referee until it's dealt with so we certainly don't want this going on for weeks and months."
Winter, however, said it was a little hypocritical of players to complain about the referees' language, when the players constantly subjected them to the same kind of abuse, although he did admit if it was of a racial nature, then it would be a different matter completely.
"Initially it is insulting words and I must admit I smiled at that because we watch football matches every week of the year hearing players use insulting words to referees and then somebody takes umbrage when somebody allegedly says something back," Winter added. "But I just hope this can be cleared.
"It's slightly ironic that players dish it out left, right and centre and then if, and there is a massive if, if something has been said back -- and we're not talking about racial here, we're talking about like for like -- then I don't think anybody's got a right to complain.
"I'm not saying referees should do it, but there seems to be one law for one set of people and one law for another, but this inference that racial language has been used is very, very serious."
