John Yems hit with ‘longest ever’ racism ban despite demanding apology

Disgraced former Crawley boss John Yems has had his ban from football doubled to three years following a successful appeal by the Football Association. Back in January, an independent regulatory panel suspended Yems for 18 months after the 63-year-old admitted one charge and was found guilty of 11 others relating to comments that referenced either ethnic origin, colour, race, nationality, religion, belief or gender. 

Yems will now be banned from all football-related activity until January 2026 after the FA successfully appealed the controversial length of his initial suspension. The governing body had pushed for a two-year ban and said it “fundamentally disagreed” with the panel’s findings that language used by Yems was not a case of “conscious racism”. 

The new ban is a record suspension for a participant in English football for engaging in discriminatory behaviour. 

An independent panel concluded that the football coach described Muslim members of his squad as “terrorists”, deliberately mispronounced the ending of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s name to emphasise the N-word, and told Muslim players that “your people blow up stuff with vests”, among other shocking charges. 

The incidents all took place between 2019 and 2022. Allegations came to light after individuals who had played under Yems complained to the Professional Footballers’ Association.

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After Yems’s ban was extended to 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.

“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.

“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. 

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“Everyone should be able to play the game in an environment that is free from discrimination and know that they can trust those who occupy positions of responsibility and power to lead a safe and positive culture, free from harm. 

“Where discrimination happens, we will always use our very best efforts to ensure the right sanctions are imposed and, where appropriate, education is available to shift mindsets and continually improve the culture of football.”

Yems had called for an apology after the findings, claiming he had not been found to use racist language with intent. He told talkSPORT: “People are out there are going to say what they are going to say, people are going to think what they are going to think. I would say to you, have a look that I wasn’t found to be racist, never used racist language with intent, if anybody needs an apology then I think I do.

“The amount of abuse I’ve been getting when people haven’t even had the courtesy to ask me. I don’t think anybody has looked at the case with any open-mindedness. I think if you are going there then there should be a few apologies coming my way.”

Yems was suspended by Crawley in April 2022 pending investigations by the club, FA and PFA. The West Sussex outfit parted ways with the former Crystal Palace, Reading and Millwall youth team player a month later.

In a statement provided to Express Sport, Tony Burnett, the CEO of Kick It Out, said: “Kick It Out welcomes today’s news from the independent Appeal Board that the suspension handed to John Yems will be extended to three years and wholeheartedly concur with their conclusion that the initial judgement that he was ‘not a conscious racist’ is ‘untenable’.

“We would like to thank The PFA and The FA for ensuring that justice prevails in the case and commend the immense courage of the victims throughout this extremely difficult process.

“Strong sanctions are crucial in sending out a message that racist, Islamophobic and discriminatory language will not be tolerated in football. We hope that the record-length ban issued to Yems today 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.

“We are here to support all victims of discriminatory abuse and we would encourage anybody who sadly experiences or witnesses abuse of any kind in the game to report it to us at Kick It Out.”

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