Preston fine brawling players to refund fans

REUTERS - Preston North End have fined two players sent off for fighting with each other and will use the money to refund their supporters who travelled to their Championship match at Sheffield Wednesday.

The incident, labelled an "embarrassment" by manager Simon Grayson, took place in stoppage time during Preston's 2-1 loss on Saturday.

Wednesday were down to 10 men when Preston's Eoin Doyle and Jermaine Beckford began pushing each other and yelling before being separated by team mates and opponents. Both were sent off by referee Scott Duncan.

Preston will not appeal against the red cards and the money from the players' fines will be used to refund all Preston supporters who made the trip to Hillsborough.

Beckford and Doyle apologised and said they supported the decision to refund the fans' ticket costs.

"We apologise wholeheartedly for our actions at Hillsborough," the players said in a statement on the club website.

“Our behaviour was not acceptable in any walk of life, let alone on a football pitch. We let down the management, our team mates and most importantly the supporters, who had spent a lot of money to support the team."

(Reporting by Simon Jennings in Bengaluru, editing by Ed Osmond)