Mourinho Punishment Explained  (Sky Sports)

Jose Mourinho was given a suspended stadium ban to stop his repeated FA rule breaches, according to the written reasons for his punishment.

Mourinho was fined £50,000 and given a suspended one-match ban after claiming "referees are afraid to give decisions for Chelsea", a verdict he later called "a disgrace" and "astonishing".

His comments, part of a seven-minute monologue live on Sky Sports, were sparked by Bobby Madley's failure to award Radamel Falcao a penalty during this month's home defeat to Southampton.

In a written appeal to the FA Mourinho suggested his poor English was responsible for any misunderstanding over whether he had questioned Madley's integrity, and the Chelsea boss also claimed he was being treated harshly compared to other managers.

But an independent panel said neither was a mitigating factor and ruled the prospect of a stadium ban was the only reasonable deterrent to a repeat offence given Mourinho had twice previously been fined in similar circumstances.

The report said: "His English is far too sophisticated for that to affect our conclusion, as the interviews themselves demonstrate."

And on Mourinho's reference to other managers' potential rule breaches it ruled: "Mr Mourinho's comments in this case were so clearly on the wrong side of the line that there is no need to go into this issue at all. It is no mitigation.

"It appears to us that increasing levels of fine are not on their own going to be a reliable deterrent for Mr Mourinho against improper comments to the media.

"We have in mind particularly that the more than doubling of the January 2015 fine as compared with the May 2014 fine has not deterred him from this latest and more serious breach.

"In our judgment the fair way to impose this deterrent is to suspend the ban so that Mr Mourinho is able quite easily to avoid its ever coming into effect. The matter is in his hands. All he has to do is refrain from any further breach by media comments for the next 12 months, whereupon the ban will expire completely.

"We consider a [suspended] stadium ban and not just a touchline ban to be the right order. This was not an offence committed in the course of a game or on or by the field of play.

"The nature of this offence - and the further offence he would have to have committed if the ban is ever to have effect - makes a stadium ban the appropriate form."