Torres will not face further ban

In surprising news, Fernando Torres will not see his one-game suspension for the red card he picked up in the 1-1 draw against Tottenham Hotspur lengthened by the FA. Torres was shown a second yellow card for a fifty-fifty challenge with Jan Vertonghen, but there was a real sense that he'd find himself in further trouble thanks to an earlier face-clawing scuffle with the Belgian defender which Mike Dean and his assistant apparently failed to see.

As it turns out, though, the FA have decided that they can't mete out further punishment. Here's their statement:

The FA will take no action against Chelsea’s Fernando Torres in relation to an incident involving Tottenham Hotspur's Jan Vertonghen which occurred in the 50th minute of their match on Saturday 28 September 2013.

One of the match officials saw the coming together of the two players, albeit not in its entirety.

In these particular circumstances, in line with The FA’s policy on when retrospective action may be taken, reviewed this summer by the game’s stakeholders (the Premier League, the Football League, the Professional Footballers’ Association, the League Managers’ Association, Professional Game Match Officials Limited and the National Game), no action may be taken.

Note that Torres gets away on a technicality rather than because the FA think he's innocent -- I've bolded the relevant section. It's kind of incredible that this rule exists, but it helps us so I'm not going to think about that too much just now. He'll still miss a game for the red card, of course.