Coventry’s manager Gordon Strachan was cleared by the FA at today's hearing into the touchline fracas between the dugouts at the club’s match at Chelsea in January.

Strachan was sent from the touchline by referee Jeff Winter when tempers flared in the 83^rd minute of the match.

The manager was charged with misconduct along with the club’s goalkeeper coach Jim Blyth and striker Noel Whelan, who was not in the team that day.

Strachan and Blyth were cleared after the FA disciplinary panel studied various videos of the incident, but Whelan was fined £750 and warned as to his future conduct.

Strachan was found guilty of misconduct however for his actions earlier in the match. He was censured, warned about his future conduct and fined £1,000 for leaving the technical area during the game and for using ‘industrial language’

At a second, unconnected hearing, Whelan was also fined £2,000 and banned for one match in a separate hearing for collecting eleven bookings. The suspension means that he misses Saturday’s match at Leicester City.

Whelan’s punishment infuriated Coventry chairman Bryan Richardson who said:

"In the case of Noel Whelan the inconsistencies of the disciplinary committee are extremely worrying in that similar cases have been dealt with in enormously differing ways and levels of punishment. In many cases there has been no ban.

He added: "We are extremely disappointed Gordon has not been cleared of all misconduct because it was clearly shown by the evidence, video and verbal, that he played no part in the incident highlighted by the media and which bought this case to the committee in the first place.

"We are happy that he has not been banned from his normal and rightful position on the touchline."

Coventry City’s secretary Graham Hover, who accompanied the three men to the FA hearing in London said: