Former Crawley manager given longest-ever ban for discrimination in English football

Former Crawley manager John Yems has been handed the longest-ever ban for discrimination in English football.

His initial 17-month suspension has been extended to three years after the Football Association (FA) appealed against the sanction on the basis it was insufficient.

It comes after he was found guilty by an independent regulatory commission on 11 out of 15 charges for using discriminatory language, and admitted one further charge.

The FA’s successful appeal means Yems is now suspended from all football-related activity until 5 January 2026.

The commission’s initial finding that Yems was “not a conscious racist” despite being found guilty of discrimination caused significant controversy. Anti-discrimination charity Kick It Out described it as a “slap in the face”.

The appeal board said the initial finding against Yems was “untenable”.

It said some of the words and expressions the original panel found Yems guilty of using were “inherently and obviously racist”, including a repeated comparison of a non-white player to a terrorist and the use of offensive names like “curry muncher”.

The appeal board said: “If the (original) commission proceeded on the basis of (Yems’) case that he intended the remarks to be ‘jokes’ or ‘banter’, and that this was in some way exculpatory or meant that he was not a ‘conscious racist’ then that was a wholly unreasonable assessment and an incorrect approach to adopt.

“Racism can take many forms and need not be deployed in a manner that is actively hostile or aggressive towards the victim.

“All of that evidence and those findings are inconsistent with the conclusion that the respondent (Yems) was not aware that his comments were, objectively, racist and wholly offensive. That conclusion was not one to which a reasonable body could have come.”

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An FA spokesperson said: “This is the longest-ever ban issued to a participant in English football for discrimination, and follows our decision to appeal and challenge the verdict of the independent regulatory commission after the first hearing in January.

“We strongly disagreed with their original sanction, as well as some of the elements of their judgement, which we fundamentally believed were not appropriate for the severity of the offences committed by John Yems.

“We are pleased that the independent appeal board ruled that specific findings from the independent regulatory commission were unreasonable, as there were numerous examples of inherent and obvious racist language.”

Kick It Out also welcomed the extension of Yems’ ban. “Strong sanctions are crucial in sending out a message that racist, Islamophobic and discriminatory language will not be tolerated in football,” it said.

The Professional Footballers’ Association worked closely with the players affected in the case.

The union’s senior EDI executive Jason Lee said the original panel’s findings had “excused” Yems’ language by saying he was not consciously racist and added: “Not only was this (finding) unnecessary, it was also dangerous. It sends a message that those in positions of authority can justify their behaviour if they claim not to understand its impact.

“That should never be accepted. It’s the job of everyone in the game, but particularly those in positions of power, to take responsibility for making sure they are educated.”

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