Gosh, that Diego Costa is a divisive character, isn’t he? Of the two big sports stories in this country last weekend, Japan cutting South Africa down to size and Costa helping cut Arsenal down to nine men, Chelsea’s pantomime villain was the one playing to boos and hisses rather than cheers and wild celebration.

Yet if pantomime villain is an apt description for Costa, who short of cultivating a twirlable moustache could not take a more dastardly persona on to the pitch if he tried, let us remember the original nature of such a figure on stage or screen was to be amusingly unsubtle.

The audience is meant to enjoy all the booing and hissing. Pantomime, like football, is part of the entertainment industry after all.

So in the light of the Football Association’s rather prissy decision to use television evidence to catch Costa out after the event – a bit like employing slow-motion footage to prove Tommy Cooper had a card up his sleeve all the time – let’s try to see if we can agree on a couple of things about Chelsea’s disagreeable striker.

First, what he did in the game against Arsenal was entertaining. It must have been, because people were still talking about it days afterwards. It may not have been particularly sporting, was definitely not a great example to hold up in front of impressionable schoolchildren, but as José Mourinho indicated if you want everything to be contact-free and above-board you can always watch badminton.

Schoolchildren might as well take note sooner rather than later that football is played differently around the world. For some players, and some cultures, the game is about what you can get away with. The rules are there to be pushed to the limit, opponents can be respected after the final whistle but are fair game to be provoked and wound up, while pulling the wool over a referee’s eyes is a legitimate contest within a contest.

This applies to other sports and neither is it remotely true only foreigners are practised in the dark arts. It is just some players are better at it than others, and at his best Costa is a consummate performer. To accomplish what he did at Stamford Bridge without being pulled up for a single foul was remarkable.

And entertaining. Of course he was playing outside the rules, and should have been brought to book much earlier, but you have to concede a sneaking admiration for a villain who hides in such plain view. Costa knew he was treading a fine line but managed to get away with it thanks in no small part to officiating that was either myopic or naive or both. It seems petty and small time to make an example of him in retrospect, particularly as he did not hurt anyone.

So, second, what Costa did in the game against Arsenal did not amount to violent conduct. Violent conduct is what he was guilty of last season, when he was correctly handed a retrospective ban for surreptitiously stamping on Liverpool players. His assault on Emre Can could have resulted in serious injury and that sort of underhand behaviour is exactly what television evidence should be used to discourage. The charge sheet from the Arsenal game amounted to little more than a chest bump and a couple of flailing arms. All right, not exactly flailing but used to give opponents what rugby league commentators refer to as a facial. Not eye-gouging or nose-rearranging, which are more serious infringements, just letting the opponent know you are around and possibly provoke a reaction. As Costa has admitted in the past to spitting into his hand and then flicking the contents at opponents when the referee is not looking – or perhaps more truthfully not really expecting such depths of skulduggery – it is possible Laurent Koscielny got more in his face than a palm and four fingers. It is true also that merely to raise one’s arms in football is technically an offence.

But if it is done so deftly that none of the on-duty officials even spot it, and the victim carries on with the game rather than being carried off on a stretcher, is it really necessary to swing into action with video evidence and three-match bans? Costa would have got three matches had he punched Koscielny in the face and walked off the pitch before the ref could produce a red card. Let’s try to keep a sense of perspective here. The three match officials are out on the pitch to enforce the rules. Unless there is a serious injury, or a genuine risk of one, their decisions should stand. If Costa is to be given a three-match ban retrospectively for being a naughty boy, what sort of punishment would be deemed appropriate for the sort of tackle that may break an opponent’s leg or the elbow that leads to a fractured jaw?

Finally, the FA’s decision to rescind Gabriel Paulista’s ban and transfer the three-match suspension to Costa makes no sense. Even Arsène Wenger admitted Gabriel was guilty. That does not mean he ought to be sitting out three matches because his reaction hardly amounted to violent conduct either, he was goaded into a mistake and the FA have sensibly decided he has been punished enough already.

Yet if there is that amount of flexibility and common sense within the disciplinary procedure, why throw the book at Costa just for getting on everyone’s nerves? Neither player did anything so violent or dangerous as to warrant a three-match ban. Why not just warn Costa over his future conduct and privately tell Mike Dean and his assistants to be more vigilant next time? Some might even argue that as the real guilty party, it ought to be the officials serving a suspension. While that would usefully sharpen everyone’s eyesight for the rest of the season, it too would be an overreaction to a not particularly shocking example of gamesmanship.

Costa is good at pushing his luck on the sly, and if anyone did not realise that before Saturday’s game they certainly do now. Television and still pictures had already provided a service in bringing Costa’s crimes to light, if his manager will forgive the expression. There the matter could have been laid to rest. He got away with them on the day, he is unlikely to find officials as accommodating again. Wenger was wrong to suggest he will continue doing the same next week and the week after, because he won’t. Television has exposed his underhand methods. But violent conduct remains a trumped-up charge. Had Costa been awarded a second yellow and dismissed he would have earned a one-match ban and no one would have complained. The officials would have got it right. But now the FA’s disciplinary panel has overcompensated. Three matches is excessive, unnecessary, almost unsporting.