Houston Dynamo leading scorer Ching was hit with a USD500 fine today for "public criticism of a Major League Soccer official that appeared via the social networking site Twitter".

Ching was commenting on the Dynamo's 2-1 defeat by Seattle last Saturday but had not played in the game or even seen the match live.

After seeing an equalising goal awarded to Seattle that appeared to have been cleared off the line, Ching, on Gold Cup duty with the USA and watching on television, tweeted: "Ref in Seattle just cheated the Dynamo. What a joke. Not even close. Ref is a cheat."

Ching backtracked on his statement the next morning, first sending a tweet that read: "Look I made a rash comment yesterday. I dont know who the ref was. I didn't understand how someone could call a goal when it wasn't 100% clear."

Ching then used Twitter to apologise for the comment "which I made in the heat of the moment. Everyone tries their best and mistakes happen."