More Burnley v Sheffield United fallout emerges - punishment potentially looms | OneFootball

The Clarets' post-promotion celebrated were tainted by the actions of a small number of their supporters.

Burnley could be set to receive a punishment from the FA due to the actions of some of their supporters following their promotion-winning match against Sheffield United.

There are few better feelings in football than achieving the goal that you set yourself at the start of a long and arduous season.

Maintaining focus, concentration and, ultimately, performance levels across such a long, draining period is something to be commended, and something worthy of celebration when it all pays off.

Rejoice is exactly what Burnley did on Easter Monday. They confirmed their return to the Premier League after just one season away with a 2-1 victory over the Blades, who also had their sights set on a top-two finish. Unfortunately for them, the result also meant that it would be impossible to catch Leeds United, who had beaten Stoke City 6-0 earlier that day.

At the time of Leeds' win, they weren't 100 per cent guaranteed to be promoted - that would be decided at Turf Moor later. But players and fans alike stayed until after the final whistle in Lancashire to celebrate their achievements. Burnley's party was a bit more impromptu. Fans invaded the pitch at the end of the game to celebrate with their players.

For those supporters, they will never forget being on the hallowed ground of their favourite football club's pitch the day they punched their ticket back to the promised land, but it wasn't all rosy scenes.

Burnley could face FA punishment for promotion pitch invasion actions

Amid the jubilation, the opposition players were still on the pitch. Some Burnley supporters took this opportunity to antagonise some members of the Blades and rub the opportunity they had missed in their faces, particularly Leicester City loanee Hamza Choudhury.

The Bangladesh international took exception to this taunting and was held back by security to stop him getting any closer to the Clarets supporters that had antagonised him.

This then led to an even bigger scuffle between the two sets of players that eventually made its way towards the tunnel, before both sides eventually dispersed to their own dressing rooms, where Burnley continued their party before coming back out onto the pitch to properly celebrate with the supporters.

Now, new reports have suggested that, as the Blades were looking to leave Turf Moor on their team bus, more abuse was aimed at the players by a small section of the home fans, as per Sky Sports.

Sheffield United are yet to make an official complaint about any of the incidents, but Burnley are still at risk of punishment from the FA, who will look at the footage of the incidents and determine what to do next.

EFL need to take a hard stance on pitch invasions

Not to sound like an old fart, or anything of that nature, but pitch invasions used to be exclusively reserved for moments of unbelievable excitement. Jimmy Glass - a goalkeeper - scoring a goal to keep Carlisle United in the football league with the last kick of the season, for example; that is a moment worthy of a pitch invasion.

Even with the famous Aguero moment when Manchester City won the Premier League for the first time in 2012, the fans at the Etihad Stadium didn't spill onto the pitch. They allowed the players to celebrate and bask in the magnitude of what they had just done.

Now every promotion and play-off semi-final win at home is met with fans straining the leads being held by the ground's security staff as they wait for the final whistle - effectively the starter gun - to set them off on their race to the centre circle, or the travelling supporters.

It's become boring seeing it after every single big moment of every season, and it's not like the EFL are exactly for it either. They strongly condemn pitch invasions and have been in contact with clubs in recent weeks, stressing the dangers and potential consequences of this action, given the increased chances of pitch invasions at this point of the season.

There's one measure that wouldn't be hard to implement that would immediately cut down on the problem: if there is a pitch invasion, the result of that match is null and void.

There would have to be more nuance to it than that, of course. If it's one or two muppets that can be easily and quickly dealt with by security, then that's not cause enough to abandon the result. But if it's a crowd of such a size that it can't be controlled by the ground's staff, so much so that they are on the pitch for five to 10 minutes or more, say, then that should warrant heavy punishment.

Actually putting the onus back on the supporters to police themselves by saying 'If you're going to act like idiots, you're going to really cost your club,' would probably start to eradicate this issue pretty quickly, and then we wouldn't have scenes like we had at Turf Moor on Sunday where opposition players are getting abused and antagonised.