Brown was punished just like Thatcher, yellow card and is now under FIFA rules made untouchable.
This rule isn't far on the player, or the referee for that matter. The ref is expected to give some sort of ruling on a foul, and if all they cant see things clear enough and only see something that deserves a yellow, then what can they do? Issue that yellow, a red, or issue nothing and have 11 players and a manager screaming at them for not doing something about it.
The yellow means absolutely nothing on its own, theres no punishment in that. The red could be very harsh and the most stupid thing a ref could do for something they've not seen properly (well, that or give a penalty for a defenders head hitting the ball!
illepall). But not doing something about it allows the FA to come down hard on the player using CCTV & TV footage.The ref's dont want to make the wrong decision, but this rule basically means that the ref's wrong decision cant be corrected to a red card.
Theres a ton of hypocricy in football, look at Rooney's unfair red card in a non-competitive match resulting in a 3 match ban in competitive matches. The FA didnt have to act on that, the moronic dutch referee felt it needed passing to the Dutch FA, who have to pass that to the English FA, then they choose to pass punishment on a non-incident... and of course they gladly obliged!
Yet when the EFA are really needed, FIFA rules stop them from doing so!
2 cases of the wrong decision being made, and the EFA are unable to do the right thing for either case
(for me thats a no 
)