The FA are to review Sir Alex Ferguson's comments about referee Martin Atkinson after Manchester United's 1-0 defeat to Portsmouth in the FA Cup yesterday.

The Manchester United manager was also highly critical of Keith Hackett, the general manager of the Professional Game Match Officials Board, for his apparent lack of action in dealing with underperforming officials.

"Managers get sacked because of things like that and he's going to referee a game next week," Ferguson said. "He [Hackett] is not doing his job properly and he needs to be assessed. I'm assessed as a manager, players are assessed, referees should be assessed properly by the right people. That performance should not be accepted by our game."

A spokesman for the FA said: "We are aware of the comments and will be giving them consideration."

Should any action be taken against Ferguson and he is found guilty he would be fined rather receive a touchline ban. United were aggrieved that Atkinson failed to give a penalty for Sylvain Distin's challenge on Cristiano Ronaldo, but Harry Redknapp, the Portsmouth manager, disagreed: "I didn't think it was a penalty. I don't think we made a bad tackle during the game. There was only one bad tackle - and that was made by a Manchester United player (Wayne Rooney was booked for a feet off the ground lunge at Niko Kranjcar).

"I thought he [the referee] got it bang on. If it was a penalty I would be the first to say 'we got away with that one'. I think Ronaldo pushed it too far and I didn't see anything wrong with the challenge. Our penalty [when Tomasz Kuszczak brought down Milan Baros] was a banker penalty."

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