Chelsea set to escape fine

Chelsea will escape a fine from the Football Association after collecting six bookings against Tottenham at White Hart Lane on Sunday.

The Premiership champions are already expecting disciplinary sanctions from UEFA after picking up six yellow cards in their Champions League clash with Barcelona last week.

But they will not face any further punishment from the FA over the number of yellow cards they received against Spurs.

Ashley Cole, Michael Ballack, Paulo Ferreira and Claude Makelele were all handed yellow cards by referee Graham Poll and skipper John Terry was sent off for two bookable offences in the second half.

But Terry’s red card counts as one offence and as a result Chelsea will not receive an automatic fine.

Meanwhile, referees’ chief Keith Hackett will meet with Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho before the end of the month.

Hackett and Mourinho are to meet to discuss various "refereeing issues" but the boss of the Professional Game Match Officials Ltd, will wait for the right slot in the footballing calendar in order to sit down with the Blues coach.

That could be as early as next week although Hackett insists no timetable has yet been laid down.

Hackett said: “We have not set a date yet. There are a number of things to take into account before we can do that.”