Red card decision overturned by FA Panel
Carlisle United can confirm that the appeal against the red card shown to defender Michael Raynes at Kenilworth Road on Saturday has been successful.Raynes, who was given his marching orders following a challenge with Hatters striker Danny Hylton with eight minutes of normal time left to play, will now be available for Saturday’s home game against Yeovil Town as normal.
Speaking about the appeal process, club secretary Sarah McKnight said: “The work on the appeal started on Sunday morning. Along with the media department we made sure we had the relevant footage and supporting evidence, and I then spoke to Keith [Curle] to get the wording of our appeal finalised.
“Once we were happy with all of that we submitted it to the FA so that they could make an informed decision. We were always very confident that the evidence we’d put together was strong, and we’re delighted to see that the FA Panel have agreed.”
Manager Keith Curle said: “We’re obviously pleased with the decision because it would have been extremely harsh for Michael to have missed out on three games for something he didn’t do.
“As we said on Saturday, Michael went into the challenge with his eyes on the ball and focused on winning the header. There was never any malicious intent. The referee’s first instinct was to allow play to continue and I think we were all surprised when his assistant suggested otherwise.
“The pleasing thing is that it is all academic now because the correct decision has been reached.”
“I will say, however, that I’m disappointed with some of the comments made by Nathan Jones and Danny Hylton which have appeared in the press over the weekend,” he continued. “We’ve had people talking about ‘off the ball incidents’ which were ‘cowardly’ acts.
“We’ve found that difficult to take because we know that Michael is a very committed and determined professional who does his job in the right way. These comments have been made, naively in my opinion, about an incident which clearly didn’t happen.
“Thankfully justice has been done.”
