Norwich are fined £10,000 by the FA and ordered with an action plan over offensive chanting by fans during the friendly at King’s Lynn.
The Canaries were handed the charge of misconduct after an anonymous report was made to anti-discrimination charity Kick It Out about ‘ableist’ chants at the fixture which took place in July 2023.
The Football Association have given the Championship outfit a formal warning and instructed them to have a “full review of its stewarding management, provision, deployments, and quality of stewarding training”.
The action plan has been put in place for the rest of the 2023/24 campaign and throughout 2024-25, with an FA compliance officer monitoring it.
Norwich City Football Club acknowledges the decision of an independent disciplinary commission to impose sanctions upon the club for a breach FA Rule E21 relating to the club’s pre-season match away at King’s Lynn Town on July 8, 2023
— Norwich City FC (@NorwichCityFC) January 15, 2024
CLUB STATEMENT:
Norwich City acknowledge the decision of an independent disciplinary commission to impose sanctions upon the club for a breach of FA Rule E21 relating to the club’s pre-season match away at King’s Lynn Town on July 8, 2023
The club accepted a charge that it failed to ensure its spectators conducted themselves in an orderly fashion due to abusive, offensive and discriminatory chanting by supporters during the match.
The club has therefore been warned as to its future conduct, issued with a fine of £10,000 and is required to implement an action plan, which will remain in force until the end of the 2024/25 season and be monitored by The FA.
The commission’s written reasons can be read here.
The club condemns the chanting in question and will take appropriate disciplinary action against anyone identified as being involved. The club reminds its supporters that discriminatory chanting is a criminal offence.
The club has a zero-tolerance policy towards discriminatory abuse of all kinds and remains committed to being ‘A Home For Everyone’. We encourage all supporters to ‘Report It’ if they witness or experience any incidents of discriminatory or anti-social behaviour, whether at Carrow Road or any of the club’s away matches
FA STATEMENT – THE FACTS
This summary is extracted from the various factual witness statements or other documentary material within the case bundle.
i. An anonymous post-match report was made to the “Kick It Out” organisation on 12th July 2023 of ableist chanting by NCFC supporters “throughout” the match against King’s Lynn on 8th July 2023;
ii. The report was to the effect that at about 7 minutes 26 seconds of the match there was an initial chant of “You’re just a town full of spastics…”
iii. After the first NCFC goal there was the chant “One nil to the spastic boys…”
iv. After the second NCFC goal there was the chant “Two nil to the spastic boys…”
v. After the third NCFC goal there was the chant “Three nil to the spastic boys…”
vi. After the fourth NCFC goal there was the chant “Four nil to the spastic boys…”
vii. After the fifth NCFC goal there was the chant “Five nil to the spastic boys…”
viii. After the sixth NCFC goal there was the chant “Six one to the spastic boys…”
ix. It is not possible to see from the match footage which supporters were responsible for the offensive chanting
x. It appears that there was no report of the offensive chanting to the stewards working at the match or indeed to any member of King’s Lynn’s staff during the match.
In addition to the above written evidence, the Commission viewed seven short pieces of video footage with audio of relevant aspects of the match. Those pieces of video footage
07:23 to 07:29 of NCFC’s full footage of the match.
16:10 to 16:24 of NCFC’s full footage of the match.
27:20 to 27:31 of NCFC’s full footage of the match.
33:06 to 33:12 of NCFC’s full footage of the match.
47:03 to 47:16 of NCFC’s full footage of the match.
48:42 to 48:55 of NCFC’s full footage of the match.
55:35 to 55:49 of NCFC’s full footage of the match.
It has not been possible to clarify whether the complainant physically attended the match or based the
complaint solely upon viewing footage of the match related to the seven separate periods of offensive chanting cited above.
In that video footage, the offensive chanting is clearly audible and involves a significant number of fans chanting the offensive comments cited above repeatedly on each occasion.
The volume of the chanting leads to the inevitable conclusion that a considerable number of supporters engaged in this ableist chanting on each occasion and that each occasion of such chanting was not a brief event.
This is what Twitter users had to say with Norwich fined by the FA over offensive chanting by fans during the friendly at King’s Lynn…
@alecb97: january budget gone
@Ginger_Canary: Well there goes our transfer budget for this month and the summer
@CorporateAK: Thank god they didn’t score a 7th
@ncfc024: £10,000 fine? There goes our entire transfer budget #ncfc
@canaryshirts: Dear @FA perhaps you would like to address Kings Lynn chanting we are a town full of spastics, before fining us £10k when we respond and chant 1-0 to the spastic boys. Careful though.. That would involve honesty and integrity.
@S_Dingle180: Think that’s this year’s friendly cancelled anyway
@S_Dingle180: Assume you’ll be paying half of the 10k? 👀 @StephenCleeve
@CPFC_GH: Let me get this straight. Kings Lynn fans started with “you’re just a town full of spastics” and the Norwich fans replied after every goal with “X nil to the spastic boys”, and Norwich are the ones in the wrong? What 😂
@mangoholic_trfc: were Kings Lynn charged incidentally for the initial chant?
@Curtis_furness: How have #ncfc been fined for responding to a chant that a section of Kings Lynn fans chant every time I’ve gone? Surely it should see KL fined every week!
@AlexVenthem: The singular Lynn game I went this year had at least two ‘town full of spastics’ from the home supporters… So thats a bit harsh.
@IanMears7: They sing it every game 🤣
You must be logged in to post a comment Login