That applied when the appeal was used so a player would be available to play a game before the appeal was heard
Appeals almost never work. A waste of time unless you have a rock hard completely indisputable case. Even then half the time they done work.
The way appeals work and referee seeing incidents is completely useless. They will always back the referee, because its what he saw and is in his report, whether that is upholding a red card or not retrospectively punishing someone for a blatant incident (elbow for example). The whole system is wrong, there is no shame in over ruling what the referee has seen, they may have made a mistake or saw something from a different angle.
I thought it was a red card but three games is harsh so thought it would be reduced. However, the biggest joke out of all this is the FA as usual. Richie did the exact same thing but because he was booked he is free to pay whilst Mane is sat on the sidelines for three games. So have the FA admitted the referee got it wrong by booking Richie but they'll blindly back their man? Or are they saying it was wrong to send Mane off but they'll blindly back their man?
Agreed. Maybe they just wanted to show support for the player especially in the light of quite a lot of the pundits - high profile - saying it shouldn't have been a red.
And Reid didn't even get a foul given against him for kicking player in head... it's just consistency. 3 similar instances with 3 different outcomes.
Don't really think they're saying anything, but if they did it would the usual "we take every incident individually", it's what they always hide behind and it works....for them.