Gabriel And Costa Charged By FA Over Clash

Chelsea’s Diego Costa, No 19, stands over Arsenal’s Laurent Koscielny as Arsenal’s Gabriel right looks on during the English Premier League soccer match between Chelsea and Arsenal at Stamford Bridge stadium in London, Saturday, September 19, 2015.

Diego Costa is facing a three-game retrospective ban as a result of his behaviour in last Saturday’s game against Arsenal. “We will await their written reasons before commenting further”, Chelsea said in a statement on Tuesday night. He has till 6 pm on Thursday [24 September 2015] to reply to the charge.

He was shown a straight red card by referee Mike Dean but, in arguing their case for wrongful dismissal, Arsenal produced video evidence that showed his foot did not connect with Costa.

The FA have now chose to charge the Spanish global with violent conduct for the off-the-ball incident involving Koscielny, which was not seen by any of the match officials at the time.

The FA have charged both Diego Costa and Gabriel Paulista following their clash in the weekend’s meeting between Chelsea and Arsenal.

“The player’s three-match suspension has, therefore, been withdrawn with immediate effect”.

It is not Costa’s first ban for violent conduct previous year .

The statement did note that Gabriel still faces a charge of improper conduct.

Meanwhile, Chelsea team-mate Kurt Zouma unwittingly found himself at the centre of a storm after saying in a television interview that Costa “likes to cheat a lot”.

One wonders if Costa’s ban, while probably not affecting the Blues’ chances in the three (comparatively easy) games he’ll miss, will still decrease referees’ leniency with his antics for the rest of the season.