Forest fined nearly $1 million for questioning referee integrity on inflammatory stand

LONDON (AP) — Nottingham Forest was fined 750,000 pounds ($980,000) on Friday after the Premier League club was found to have questioned the integrity of match officials in an extremely inflammatory social media post that had more than 46 million views .

The post in question appeared shortly thereafter Forest lost to Everton 2-0 in the Premier League in April, criticizing the fact that the authorities did not award Forest a penalty. It claimed that the match’s VAR, Stuart Attwell, was a fan of a rival club struggling against relegation, as Forest were at the time.

Forest denied his comments suggested “bias and/or questioning the integrity of the match officials and/or video assistant referee and/or bringing the match into disrepute,” the Football Association said.

However, the governing body said that after a hearing, an independent regulatory commission found the allegations proven and imposed a fine, while warning Forest of misconduct.

Forest’s social media post went beyond criticizing match officials for alleged incompetence in failing to mark penalties for three clear fouls during the match that Forest claimed occurred.

He pointed to potential foul play, questioning the honesty of Attwell, who Forest said was a Luton fan.

“Three extremely bad decisions – three penalties not imposed – that we simply cannot accept,” we read. “We warned the PGMOL (English football referees body) before the match that VAR was a Luton fan, but they didn’t change it. Our patience has been tested many times.”

A day later, Forest said it had made a formal request to the refereeing body to release audio recordings between Attwell and on-field referee Anthony Taylor regarding the incidents in question, in order to obtain “full transparency” and ensure “the integrity of our sport is upheld.”

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