Chelsea rushed into the accusation, with wafer-thin evidence. A lot to do with those two key mistakes by the officials and Chelsea wanting revenge.
By 6pm on that day it was widely known that Chelsea were making these accusations against Clattenburg. But their statement 3 days later says that there was a "thorough investigation carried out by the club, and led by outside legal counsel" http://www.chelseafc.com/chelsea-article/article/2966231/title/chelsea-statement Maybe they carried out the investigation after they leaked it to the press. Possibly they were forced to leak to the press after RDM, Mikel, their Chief Exec and others were heard screaming in the referee's dressing room. They have previous. Death threats forcing a referee out of the game, led by their manager at the time. Because they lost a game.
The thing is that if you either - 1) Heavily fine Chelski OR 2) Deduct points from Chelski then, in future, if players report racial abuse to their Club and the Club wish to report this to the FA PERHAPS a Club will fail to do this through fear of points lost or a heavy fine IF the FA could not find enough proof to confirm the allegations? With all the efforts to try and erradicate racism in football this is not a situation the FA could allow to happen. It was the appearance, in the media, of this story so quickly that was the problem here and NOT the fact that Chelski reported the allegations to the FA.
Maybe I'm a bit more cynical than you are about Chelsea's motives, but they made the allegation on the say-so of one player whose English is poor, when Mikel himself, who was much nearer to the ref heard nothing. REmember they also withdrew an allegation that he made comments to Mata. The fact that they rushed into this (and made it public) suggests to me that they had another agenda.
You are possibly right on Chelski's motives Billy but the fact is that if one of a Club's players make this sort of allegation then the Club is duty bound to report it to the FA and the FA are duty bound to investigate it...... this should not be done, however, in the public eye!
Hope the players who accused him get a 6 game + ban. In my opinion, that accusation is worse than an actual case of racist abuse - they could have potentially destroyed the ref's career, his whole livelihood, he's not earning megabucks in the way Chelsea players are. It also potentially damages the likelihood of racial abuse being reported, and the sincerity with which it will be met. Chelsea have grown into a disgrace of a football club.
They always were a disgrace. Remember when their fans tried to burn the stand down, and caused considerable damage to the turnstile. Just because we beat them 4-0 in the pre-Abramovic era. It's put me right off Paul Elliott to hear him defending Abramovic and talking about "a club of chelsea's stature"
