Nottingham Forest hit out at FA after £750,000 fine for Attwell comments

Nottingham Forest have criticised the Football Association after being fined £750,000 for their extraordinary social media post last season about VAR Stuart Attwell, and have said they will appeal.

Forest described as “wholly inappropriate” the FA’s submission that the club should be fined at least £1m and the penalty imposed by an independent commission.

The club were fined and warned over their future conduct for implying bias and/or questioning the integrity of match officials. They denied the charge but the commission upheld the FA’s findings.

Forest felt they should have had three penalties in a defeat at Everton last season and, after the game on 21 April, posted on their X account: “Three extremely poor decisions – three penalties not given – which we simply cannot accept. We warned the PGMOL that the VAR [Attwell] is a Luton fan before the game but they didn’t change him. Our patience has been tested multiple times. NFFC will now consider its options.”

Forest asked to listen to the VAR audio from the game, a request which Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) granted. The club also called for PGMOL to take into account “contextual” rivalries when making referee and VAR appointments, but when the allegiances criteria were published at the start of this season this was not included.

Forest released a statement yesterday, saying: “We are particularly concerned that The FA, in its submissions, sought a sanction ‘in excess of £1,000,000’. We believe that this request, along with the subsequent fine, is wholly disproportionate.”