Mourinho fined £25,000 for 'campaign' comments

We knew this was coming (and we know there'll be more to come as well!). The FA have settled on a fine for Jose Mourinho's 'campaign against Chelsea' comments, made in the wake of a referee-aided 1-1 draw at Southampton: £25,000.

Let's hear from English football's infallibly competent ruling body:

Following an independent regulatory commission hearing, Jose Mourinho has been fined £25,000 after he was found to have breached FA rules in relation to media comments.

The Chelsea manager denied that comments he made after the game against Southampton on December 28, 2014 constituted improper conduct in that they alleged and/or implied bias on the part of a referee or referees, and/or brought the game into disrepute.

The independent regulatory commission found the comments were a breach of FA rule E3 in that they were improper and brought the game into disrepute. The commission did not, however, find that the comments implied bias on the part of a referee or referees.

Mr Mourinho, who had requested a non-personal hearing, was also warned as to his future conduct.

I think I make this point whenever we see a manager fined by the FA, but it fascinates me so I'm going to do it again: £25,000 would be an unfathomably large amount of money owed for more or less anyone reading this, but it's more or less trivial for a man like Mourinho, who won't have any compunction about paying it.

Anyway, the main point I suspected the manager appealed on was about implying referee bias, which he was cleared of on account of obviously not doing any such thing. Meanwhile, the campaign continues with the focus on Bad Man Diego Costa rather than Lazar 'Clothesline' Markovic, Jordan 'Goalkeeper' Henderson, etc, etc, etc.

But that doesn't imply media bias, by any means. The world would just rather pay attention to big clubs than little ones. We rule the roost, we get the attention. Would rather be up here than elsewhere.

PS: Please let this be Jose's next press conference: