Premier League players have been warned they face harsher punishments for harassing referees as part of a raft of measures aimed at stamping out bad behaviour on the pitch.

English football’s authorities aim to “reset” the attitude from players and managers towards officials in the coming season.

A series of measures intended to tackle the issue were revealed on Monday ahead of the Premier League campaign kicking off on August 11.

The new ‘Participant Charter’ empowers referees to take tougher action against unacceptable behaviour, backed up by stronger disciplinary action from the Football Association.

Serious and repeat offenders can expect to face increased financial penalties, while referees will be encouraged to issue at least a yellow card if they are surrounded by two or more players.

Managers can also expect to be punished if they leave the technical area on the touchline to “enter the pitch to confront any match official at halftime or fulltime”.

“We want players, managers and fans to continue showing their passion, but these new measures have been introduced to ensure that the line is not crossed when it comes to on-field and technical area behaviour,” said Premier League chief executive Richard Masters.

FA chief executive Mark Bullingham added: “Football has the power to unite and inspire all those that play and watch the game. However, sometimes, this can be negatively impacted by a small minority of players, coaches and fans.

“Our collective approach is to reset this behaviour on the pitch and from the sidelines, while giving our referees the respect and protection that they deserve.”

Off the field, clubs in the Premier League and the Football League will seek stronger sanctions against fans found to be involved in football tragedy abuse, such as chanting about the Hillsborough or Munich disasters.

“Incidents such as dangerous conduct, discrimination, and chanting about football-related tragedies have no place in our game – and can lead to football bans and potential criminal action,” Bullingham said.

Brazilian defender Dani Alves will be tried on sexual assault charges in Spain, the high court of Catalonia told AFP on Monday.

The former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain star was detained in January after being accused of raping a young woman in the bathroom of a nightclub in late December.

The court said a date for the trial had not yet been set.

The 40-year-old Brazilian has been held in custody without bail because the court investigating him felt there was a risk he would try to flee.

When the story first broke – and before he was arrested – Alves in a television interview initially denied knowing the woman.

But when questioned by investigators after his arrest, he changed his story, insisting that they had had consensual relations.

Alves, who could face up to 12 years in jail if found guilty, defended his innocence in an interview published in June, saying he has a “clear conscience”.

“I have a really clear conscience regarding what happened that night in the bathroom of the VIP area of the Sutton nightclub,” he told daily newspaper La Vanguardia in his first interview since his arrest.

“What happened and what didn’t happen. And what didn’t happen is that I forced this woman to do anything that we did,” he added.

In the June article, he told La Vanguardia that he had lied at first because he was afraid his wife would leave him if he admitted he had been with another woman.

At the time of the incident, Alves was on holiday in Barcelona after playing for Brazil at the World Cup in Qatar.

After his arrest, Alves, who is being held in the Brians penitentiary complex outside Barcelona, was sacked by his Mexican club Pumas UNAM.

In a highly successful career, Alves won 42 football titles, including three Champions Leagues with Barcelona and two Copa Americas with Brazil.

A doping investigation into Australian Olympic 800m runner Peter Bol was dropped Tuesday, with the middle-distance star calling it “a dream come true”.

Bol, who narrowly missed bronze when he finished fourth at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, returned a positive result for performance-enhancing Erythropoietin Receptor Agonists (EPO) in January.

He was suspended from all competition, but a later analysis of his B-sample returned an “atypical finding”, meaning it did not confirm the original test.

The Sudan-born athlete, who always claimed innocence, has now been cleared, with further testing at a World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited laboratory confirming a negative result

“As a result, Sport Integrity Australia has taken the decision not to progress an anti-doping rule violation for this sample,” the anti-doping agency said. “The investigation into this sample is finalised.”

Bol said he had been “exonerated” and would now focus on the World Athletics Championships in Hungary later this month.

“It was a false positive like I have said all along,” he said.

“The news from Sport Integrity Australia today was a dream come true. No one should ever experience what I have gone through this year.”

Wada said it was satisfied that Sport Integrity Australia followed all applicable processes, but would conduct a review nevertheless.

“While we have no reason to question the validity of the analytical method used for recombinant EPO, Wada will assess the current review process in light of the particularities of this case,” it said.

Football legend Marta was moved to tears Tuesday as the Brazilian reflected on her career and legacy on the eve of what could be her final Women’s World Cup appearance.

Brazil face Jamaica in Melbourne in their final group match on Wednesday knowing they must win to guarantee they stay in the tournament in Australia and New Zealand.

The 37-year-old Marta – nicknamed “Pele in a skirt” by the late football great – has already said this will be her last World Cup.

She is the all-time leading goal-scorer in World Cups, men’s or women’s, and if she adds to her tally of 17 she will be the first footballer in history to score at six World Cups.

“You know what’s good? When I started there were no idols in women’s football,” she told reporters on the eve of the match with Jamaica, tears filling her eyes.

“How could there be if you didn’t show women’s football? How could I understand that I would reach the national team and become a reference point?

“Now I go out on the street and people stop me, parents say to me, ‘My daughter adores you, she wants to be just like you.'”

Marta has spent a lifetime overcoming obstacles, from a childhood of poverty to sexism and, more recently, the worst injury of her career.

“It is logical that I am happy to see all this because 20 years ago, in 2003, nobody knew Marta,” she added, looking back at how far women’s football has come.

It is unclear if the attacker, who has never won the World Cup despite all her achievements, will start against Jamaica.

But she could be called off the bench by coach Pia Sundhage if Brazil are chasing the win they so desperately need to stay in the competition.

‘Lethal weapon’

Jamaica are second behind Group F leaders France going into the last round of games, and won their first Women’s World Cup game in history when they defeated Panama 1-0 last time out.

They were missing the prolific striker Khadija Shaw in the Panama win after she was sent off for a second yellow card in their opening 0-0 draw with France.

The 26-year-old Shaw, who scored 31 goals in 30 games for Manchester City last season, will be back to face Brazil and could have a major say in proceedings.

“She’s a lethal weapon, she scores goals and is the leading goal-scorer in Jamaica,” coach Lorne Donaldson said.

“She’s a very good leader and an outstanding footballer.”

Donaldson, whose side is ranked 43 in the world to Brazil’s eight, said his team were the underdogs despite being in a better position to make it out of the group.

But he called his players “resilient”, adding: “We know Brazil are going to come after us with everything they’ve got, but we have to be ready.

“We want to stay a little longer.”