Former Crawley manager John Yems has had his ban from football for making racist comments to players extended, following a successful appeal by the FA.
Yems was handed an 18-month suspension when he was found guilty of 11 charges of racist abuse, and admitted one, in January.
But the FA appealed against the sanction and an independent appeal board has banned the 63-year-old from all football and football-related activity until January 2026.
The FA said it was “the longest ever ban issued to a participant in English football for discrimination”.
An FA spokesperson said: "We welcome the verdict from the independent appeal board to suspend John Yems from all football-related activity until January 2026.
"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.
"This is a deeply distressing case for the victims involved, and we hope that the outcome of this appeal will help to bring some closure. We also hope that this will encourage anyone who has experienced or witnessed discrimination in the game to report it.”
In his defence during his hearing in November, Yems "categorically denied that he was in any way racist".
