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Saddlers chief slams appeals system

Tue 18 Mar, 12:45 PM


Walsall's Roy Whalley has called for transparency in the way the FA handle appeals and described their procedures as 'cloak and dagger'.Chief executive Whalley was outraged by the FA's decision to reject the Saddlers' appeal against Richard Taundry's red card in the 2-1 home defeat to Brighton on March 11.

"There are certain points with this procedure that I am very unhappy with," Whalley told Walsall's official website. "There is a complete lack of transparency with how the FA handles appeals. Neither the club or player is allowed to be represented and the referee is not required to be present.

"The FA make these commissions such a cloak and dagger affair. It is all done behind closed doors and we are not even told about who the members are that make up the committee or the reasons behind their decision.

"It is outrageous that there is a total information blackout and it leaves us with the feeling that the £500 we spent to cover administration costs for sending the FA a DVD of the incident together with a letter explaining our reasons for appeal was a total waste of time.

"Did the commission take any time to give serious consideration to our case? Did they bother to even watch the DVD in slow motion as they needed to do to reach a fair decision? We don't know the answers."

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