Former Crawley manager John Yems’ suspension from football has been increased following a successful appeal from the Football Association.
Yems was given a 17-month ban back in January of this year by an independent regulatory commission after it found him guilty on 11 out of 15 charges for using discriminatory language, with a further charge admitted.
However, the Football Association felt the sanction was insufficient and announced it would appeal.
He will now be suspended from all football-related activity up to and including January 5, 2026.
The original regulatory panel controversially found in its written reasons back in January that, despite being found guilty on 11 charges of using discriminatory language, Yems was “not a conscious racist”.
Anti-discrimination charity Kick It Out described that assessment as a “slap in the face” to those who had been on the receiving end of Yems’ comments, and the FA fundamentally disagreed with the finding as it announced its intention to appeal.
Following the extension of the ban by an independent appeal board, an FA spokesperson said on Wednesday: “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.”
