Nottingham Forest heavily fined after social media comments

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 post on social media that has had more than 46 million views.

The post in question was published soon after Forest’s 2-0 loss to Everton in the Premier League in April, criticizing the failure of officials to award Forest a penalty. It claimed that the VAR for the match, Stuart Attwell, was a fan of a rival club that was fighting relegation, like Forest was at the time.

Forest denied its comments implied “bias and/or question the integrity of the match officials and/or the video assistant referee and/or bring the game into disrepute,” the Football Association said.

However, the governing body said an independent regulatory commission found the charge to be proven following a hearing and issued the fine, while also warning Forest for misconduct.

The social media post by Forest went beyond criticizing match officials for perceived incompetence for the failure to award penalties for what Forest said were three clear fouls during the game.

It pointed to potential foul play by questioning the integrity of Attwell, who, Forest said, is a fan of Luton.

“Three extremely poor decisions — three penalties not given — which we simply cannot accept,” it read. “We warned the PGMOL (English soccer’s referees body) that the VAR is a Luton fan before the game but they didn’t change him. Our patience has been tested multiple times.”

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