The subject of retrospective punishment should be as much the discussion as goofy's eating habits.
I've thought for a while that the FA saying they can't take action if the ref "sees" the incident is an *excuse* not to take action, not the *reason* (big difference there).
Because we now have a situation where no action was taken at the time against Sturridge or Nasri (we presume because the ref didn't "see" the incidents, because if he did, how could he fail to take action?), thus meaning that the FA can, by their own rules, take action. Except they won't of course.
And then we have the eating incident, which in many ways wasn't anywhere near as serious as potential leg breakers getting all the publicity so that the FA *will* take retrospective action... even though the ref (by the FA's own definition) did "see" the incident, because he spoke to both of them afterwards. Sure he probably didn't see exactly what happened, but surely in all the recent incidents where the FA say they can't do anything the ref also didn't see exactly what happened. In other words, they are hypocritically going to break their rules and deal with these incidents exactly the opposite way to what they have been recently saying!