Former Crawley Town manager John Yems has had his suspension from football for making racist comments to players extended until 2026 after a successful appeal by the Football Association. He was found guilty of 11 charges of racist abuse, admitted one and given a 17-month ban.
The 63-year-old's extended suspension is the longest ban issued to someone in English football for discrimination. The FA appealed against the sanction on the basis it was "insufficient".
A report from the disciplinary commission had said that comments made by Yems were "not a case of conscious racism", which the FA disagreed with. The appeal board upheld the FA's claim with a subsequent three-year ban issued until January 2026.
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."
Yems was suspended by Crawley in April last year amid accusations that he had used discriminatory language and behaviour towards his players between 2019 and 2022. He parted with the League Two club 13 days later, days after the FA announced its investigation.
He admitted one charge of making comments that had a reference to either ethnic origin, race, nationality, religion, gender or colour but denied 15 others against him. The independent regulatory commission found 11 of the charges to be proven and four unproven.
In his defence, Yems denied that he was in any way racist the tribunal's report stated. Former Nottingham Forest striker Jason Lee, now the Professional Footballers' Association 's senior equality, diversity and inclusion executive, said: "Despite the ban given to John Yems following the original hearing, the subsequent written findings essentially excused his language and behaviour as 'unconscious racism'.
"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.”
The chief executive of Kick It Out, Tony Burnett, said his organisation welcomed the news that Yems' ban had been lengthened. "Strong sanctions are crucial in sending out a message that racist, Islamophobic and discriminatory language will not be tolerated in football,” he said.
"We hope that the record-length ban will be a landmark moment that enables more victims of discrimination to come forward and provides a powerful statement that abusing the power dynamic between coach and player will have severe consequences.”
