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Sunderland boss Roy Keane has accused his fellow Premiership mangers of being "hypocrites" over their demand for greater respect to be shown to referees.

Following ugly scenes throughout the season, culminating in Chelski full-back Ashley Cole refusing to turn around and face Mike Riley, a number of managers have insisted that referees should be treated better.

But Keane, who famously launched a vein-throbbing tirade at Andy D'Urso when he dared to award a penalty against Manchester United, complained to the BBC: "There are a lot of hypocrites out there. The same bosses talking about players showing respect have been sent off themselves for abusing officials.

"There has been so much rubbish spoken in the last week or two. I have spoken to many old players and they used to go out and try to break people's legs.

"Now there is the big issue with the referees and of course, that has to be respected.

"I hear nonsense about how we should look at rugby and rugby league and how they treat officials - listen, I watch rugby league every week and every Friday night, there is a punch-up.

"Lawrence Dallaglio has been suspended this week, an absolutely brilliant rugby player who I have great respect for. As I said, I watch rugby league and you are guaranteed a fight every week, so who do we listen to?

"A lot of it will come down to the managers and how the managers behave. You watch a lot of managers - and sometimes it is not the manager, it is their staff, which is worse because the manager is letting the staff carry on that way.

"We have got to be careful who we listen to. There are a lot of hypocrites out there, a lot, a lot of hypocrites in football.

"Managers are coming out and saying we have got to respect the officials, and they are being sent off themselves.

"It makes me sick."

In the wake of Cole's behaviour, Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson described haranguing of referees as "absolutely ridiculous" and has subsequently condemned Javier Mascherano's deranged reaction to beuing dismissed last Sunday.

"We tell them to shake the hand of the referee at the end of the game. Sometimes it's difficult, but they have to do it," declared Ferguson. "We were talking about respect for referees at grass-roots level, and that's something I think is absolutely correct. The haranguing of referees is absolutely ridiculous - we know that. It's not right. We see it as an issue."

While Keane has not identified any of the managers he believes are hypocrites by name, Ferguson is one of the few managers in the Premiership to be sent off this season after he launched a tirade of abuse at Mark Clattenburg during ManYoo's defeat to Bolton in November. More recently, he accused Martin Atkinson of being on Portsmouth's "side" following United's exit from the FA Cup - a libellous attack made less than two weeks before he clambered up the moral highground to address the issue of player behaviour.