Last week, in an unprecedented decision, an Appeal Board upheld the verdict of the Football Association Regulatory Commission in a case pertaining to a previous post on X, formerly Twitter, by Nottingham Forest Football Club. Consequently, the club have been fined £750,000.
During April 2023, Forest, Everton and Luton Town were mired in a relegation battle. Ahead of the match between Forest and Everton, the former’s refereeing consultant, Mark Clattenburg, alerted the Professional Game Match Officials Ltd (PGMOL) Chief Officer, Howard Webb, to the fact that the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) for the day, Stuart Attwell, was a Luton fan. Whilst Clattenburg warned Webb of the risks of appointing Attwell, his comments fell on deaf ears.
Forest lost 2-0 to Everton, a fact compounded by the failure of VAR to intervene in three penalty decisions. Furious, Forest then tweeted to critique the refereeing display.
“Three extremely poor decisions – three penalties not given – which we simply cannot accept. We warned the PGMOL that VAR official is a Luton fan before the game but they didn’t change him. Our patience has been tested multiple times. NFFC will now consider its options.”
The FA charged Forest with implying bias on the part of VAR and therefore bringing the game into disrepute. As a result, Forest were charged by the FA. In October, Forest were ordered to pay £750,000 by the Commission.
Forest appealed against both liability and the fine. Their lawyers argued that the tweet did not implicitly accuse VAR of actual bias. The Commission, and later the Appeal Board, disagreed. It regarded the usage of intimidatory language as particularly telling.
Forest also contested the severity of their £750,000 fine. Using examples of other cases of misconduct, they argued any fine should have been no more than £300,000. However, the Board comprehensively rejected these arguments as the examples presented by Forest were not of any relation to the case. None of them involved any attempt to undermine the integrity of match officials.
The Board said that £750,000 was a heavy fine but that in this case it was merited for a number of reasons. Firstly, the tweet went “viral” and was viewed by over 40 million people. Secondly, Forest did not take the tweet down. The unprecedented nature of the case made it difficult to arrive at a reasonable and proportionate penalty. The Board recommended the FA issue sanction guidelines for different offences – like those published by the Sentencing Council in the criminal justice system – to better deal with these issues in future.
Photo Credits: “Nottingham MMB 15 City Ground” by mattbuck (category) is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.