Commie Control

The Commission has sat, the result has been checked and verified and the winner is... stupidity.

For the pre-match Howard Webb comments Sir Alex is let off with a fine.  Fair enough.  The interesting bit comes in the explanation of their decision:

"This is a clear breach of the rule and it is the first time such a matter has been placed in front of a Commission. As a result of this charge The Commission were aware of other occasions where pre-match comments were made by other managers.

"In this case, it was considered to be a minor breach, but a breach nevertheless, and it should be taken as a warning to all managers in the future that any such breach, even positive comments, are likely to result in a charge by the FA."

"As a result of this charge," so they were not aware of comments on referees in pre-match press conferences before this incident.  The matter had not been brought to their attention?  Why?  The FA introduce a rule, then ignore it.  Forget about it.  Until Sir Alex breaches the rule in the most innocuous way imaginable and then they pounce.  Which seems to me very much like they keep a special eye on Sir Alex.  They watch no other press conferences, interviews, read nothing in the papers about the press conferences or interviews.  They just sit and watch Sir Alex and hope he slips up.  I find it bizarre, they never realised this type of thing went on.  What on earth do they actually do?  And the warning to Sir Alex should serve as a warning to the other managers?  They're not for real are they, they'll be sending the whole class out the room next until someone owns up, or putting everyone on detention.  

Why admit that you were basically ignoring your own rule?  Why didn't they just pretend that they'd decided things have gone far enough and that as of next season it'll be zero tolerance on comments on referees?  Instead they admit that there is almost literally one rule for Sir Alex and another for the other managers - or at least one rule for Sir Alex which is ignored for everyone else.

Idiots.