The club know that the red card wouldn't have been revoked, so in answer to your question, they are not stupid (well, not in this case anyway). Please direct your anger in the right direction, Steve Idiot Bennett, who now is presumably going to end up officiating games of five a side if his decision making is going to be consistant. I'm usually the type to defend referees because they have a tough job to do, but this decision was just silly. A Yellow card for Adebayor at most. Probably just a free kick would have been the correct decision. You could even argue the Stoke player should have had a Yellow card for being a mardarse trying to get an opponent sent off. As long as referees keep making game changing mistakes like this one you'll never stop the cheating imo.