According to Sky Sports News HQ, Diego Costa will not be facing retrospective punishment for the incident involving himself and Martin Skrtel during Liverpool’s 3-1 defeat of on Saturday.
BREAKING: Sky Sources: Chelsea’s Diego Costa will not face punishment for incident involving Martin Skrtel on Saturday #SSNHQ
— Sky Sports News HQ (@SkySportsNewsHQ) November 2, 2015
The incident in question occurred in the 66th minute of the game with the scores level at 1-1. Costa, 27, appeared to dig his boot into Skrtel’s chest as both fell to the ground in the middle of the field. Skrtel, to his credit, offered no response other than staring into Costa’s soul.
Referee Mark Clattenburg took no action at the time, which could mean one of two things: he saw what happened but chose not to send Costa off, or he didn’t see it which would have allowed the FA to punish Costa based on TV replays after the match. However, Sky’s latest tweet suggests that Clattenburg did in fact spot the incident and deemed any contact accidental.
Costa has already faced trial by television once this season, being banned for his clash with Arsenal’s Koscielny earlier this year in September. This would have meant that any punishment for the Skrtel incident would have have carried an additional ban on one game increasing the “should-have-been” ban to four games. A four-game ban would have seen the striker miss games against Stoke, Norwich, Tottenham and Bournemouth.
