Chelsea lose first round of disciplinary complaints

Roman Abramovich will not miss the money, but the Football Association's disciplinary process finally caught up with Jose Mourinho and Chelsea yesterday and fined the Premiership leaders and their coach a total of £20,000 for a series of misdemeanours.

Roman Abramovich will not miss the money, but the Football Association's disciplinary process finally caught up with Jose Mourinho and Chelsea yesterday and fined the Premiership leaders and their coach a total of £20,000 for a series of misdemeanours.

In further bad news for Chelsea, football's European governing body, Uefa, has thrown out the formal complaint they submitted over Barcelona's alleged misconduct during half-time at the Nou Camp in the first leg of their Champions' League tie. A Uefa source said it could find no evidence to support Mourinho's allegations that his Barça counterpart, Frank Rijkaard, had held a private conversation with the referee Anders Frisk in his changing-room at half-time.

The FA called in Mourinho to fine him £5,000 for his comments following Chelsea's first leg Carling Cup semi-final draw with Manchester United in January, in which he alleged that the referee, Neale Barry, had been influenced by Sir Alex Ferguson in an interview with the club's in-house television channel.

"The referee controlled the game in one way during the first half but in the second they had dozens of free-kicks," he said. "It was fault after fault, dive after dive. But I know the referee did not walk to the dressing-rooms alone at half-time. He should only have had his two assistants and the fourth official with him but there was also someone else."

Chelsea were also fined £15,000 for failing to control their players during clashes with Blackburn Rovers on 2 February after a dispute that centred on John Terry and Paul Dickov. Blackburn were fined £10,000 for the same offence but, unlike Chelsea, they did not contest the charge.

Uefa has also announced that it will launch an investigation into the incidents that took place in the Stamford Bridge tunnel after Tuesday's match against Barcelona during which their Cameroon international striker Samuel Eto'o alleged that he was racially abused by a Chelsea steward, an accusation that Chelsea strenuously denied on Wednesday after questioning the steward. While Uefa is not likely to investigate those allegations, it will take action on whatever is deemed to have occurred in the tunnel.

The Uefa spokesman William Gaillard said that the report from the match delegate Gerhard Kapl indicated that there were grounds for an investigation. "We are now talking to witnesses and looking at video and audio evidence," he said. "We have not reached the stage where we are charging either team but we are trying to figure out what happened.

"We have our usual array of sanctions, it all depends on the gravity of the offence. It could be a team sanction, which would be a fine, or if it was extremely serious there could be a suspension of the ground."

Mourinho has already been reminded of his responsibilities by the FA after he appeared to make a potentially provocative silencing gesture to Liverpool fans during the Carling Cup final, though the Portuguese manager maintained that he was addressing members of the press.

The Premier League is still investigating the allegations that Chelsea made an illegal approach to the Arsenal defender Ashley Cole.