Bite shame player leaves rival furious as incident reported in Preston vs Burnley match

Burnley have reported an incident between Hannibal Mejbri and Preston star Milutin Osmajic, which left their player furious.

In the 57th minute, Tunisia international Mejbri was left irate after a clash with Osmajic saw the latter appear to aim words in his direction.

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An emotional Mejbri went from smiling to anger in a millisecond, running towards referee Andrew Kitchen, who was praised by both teams for his conduct, and explaining what had happened.

Osmajic is no stranger to controversy having been banned for eight games and fined £15,000 earlier in the campaign.

He was spotted biting Blackburn Rovers star Owen Beck, who was sent off for kicking out at his teammate Duane Holmes.

And now he could be in more hot water with an alleged comment directed towards Mejbri.

Queried about what had happened, Burnley manager Scott Parker told talkSPORT: “Yeah, there was an incident.

“What Hannibal heard someone say to him. And instantly, I think everyone sees it in the stadium, his reaction, the emotional state that he went into.

“He was obviously hurt and tried to calm the situation down while trying to get some context on exactly what was said and have an understanding of that situation.

“Fair play to him. At that point, I’ve never really been involved in a game where what Hannibal said to me [happened] I never had to deal with that. So obviously my main focus and support at that moment was for Hannibal.

“He’s now got to carry on playing a game of football, really. He was brilliant in that, really.”

Asked whether the referee could have done more in the moment, he added: “No, the ref can’t hear that. He’s in a stadium of people. Fourth can’t hear it. I thought the officials, for my disappointment in him not giving a penalty, I thought he handled it and the fourth handled it very, very well.

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“It’s been reported now. It’ll go through due process now. We’ll see, I’m sure in the coming days there’ll be some actions or whatever may take place, really.”

And Parker added the player himself was in good spirits.

He added: “He’s not too bad. He’s fine.”

Preston boss Paul Heckingbotham then had his say with talkSPORT.

“I’ve not spoken to anyone there yet. Looking from up there, I’m looking at that and thinking it’s a difficult one for the referee when it’s he said, she said.

“Obviously everyone reacts in a different way to something that they don’t know what’s happened. Does that make sense?

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“I thought the referee handled it really, really well. Calmed down a potentially explosive situation really quickly.

“Spoke to both parties, spoke to both captains and literally calmed everyone down really, really well.

“That’s my first take, that he managed that really, really well. We’ll wait to see. I’ll speak to our guys, speak to theirs and the referees then if there is something they always put it in a report and then it’s looked into.”

Asked about the potential of losing Osmajic again after his previous ban, he added: “You talk as if something’s happened, but none of us know that.

“If you spend any time with Milan you know what a good guy he is. You also know how many languages he speaks and everything he shouts. I don’t understand half the things he says.

“At the minute everything is speculation. I thought the referee handled a potentially difficult situation really, really well.”