Luis Suarez has been banned for one match and fined £20,000 for a gesture made towards Fulham fans.
Liverpool have also been fined £20,000 for failing to control their players in the same match.
The ruling, announced today by the English Football Association, comes at a sensitive time for the Reds, who have made clear their anger over an eight-game suspension handed to the Uruguayan striker for racially abusing Manchester United's Patrice Evra.
The Fulham match, on 5 December, saw Reds midfielder Jay Spearing sent off, an incident that led to a handful of Liverpool players remonstrating with referee Keith Friend.
The club admitted the charge of failing to ensure their players conducted themselves in an orderly fashion but contested the financial penalty.
Despite Liverpool contesting the fine, an independent regulatory commission ruled it was applicable.
Both the club and Suarez, who was pictured apparently giving supporters a one-fingered gesture and admitted the charge against him, have been warned about their future conduct.
Liverpool, whose players and manager, Kenny Dalglish, wore Suarez T-shirts in the warm-up of their match against Wigan, look certain to appeal the eight-game ban against once they have assessed the commission's detailed report.
Suarez will now miss Friday's match at home to Newcastle.
During the Fulham match the Uruguayan had been targeted by abuse from sections of the crowd who felt he was cheating by going to ground too easily.
However, in the days after the game Dalglish was so incensed by some of the treatment the 24-year-old was subjected to by Fulham players he used his pre-match press conference to show a DVD of incidents he felt supported his claims.
He also argued against the Spearing dismissal, when the midfielder won the ball but his follow-through caught Mousa Dembele, which prompted the protest to Friend by a number of his players.
Friday will be the first time Dalglish has been unable to select Suarez since the player arrived from Ajax for £22.8million in January.
The striker has been a pivotal part of the team's resurgence under the Scot. He is Liverpool's leading scorer this season with eight goals - five of which have been in the Barclays Premier League.
This will be his first suspension in English football, although just before arriving on Merseyside Suarez served a seven-match ban for biting an opponent in a Dutch league game.
