United managing director John Nixon (JN) spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's Paul Newton (PN) on Friday evening about the decision at an FA tribunal on Wednesday morning to fine Carlisle £3,500 for their part in the fracas at Oldham two and a half weeks ago :
PN
What has been the club's reaction to this punishment this week?
JN
I think we have been extremely disappointed, I was disappointed that justice was not seen to be done at the hearing, and I was disappointed with the whole process that took place. I think at the end of the day we came away with a fine that wasn't really justified, although to be fair we had pleaded gulity to part of the offence.
PN
You requested a personal hearing with the FA, what kind of evidence was submitted to help your case and what exactly happened in that hearing?
JN
I think it is fairly important to understand what happened in the first place. When the FA contacted us, they alleged that in the 85th minute of that fixture, that Carlisle United failed to ensure that its players and/or officials conducted themselves in an orderly fashion, or refrained from provocative behaviour.
Now, they made that a non-standard case, which means that our fine potentially was up to £25,000, and they made it non-standard on the basis of there was a potential to incite the crowd, the proxomity of a mass confrontation to the crowd and the involvement of bench personnel, none of which we had.
The only evidence that they gave us was the referee's (Mark Haywood's) report, which simply said this, and I will read the part, and this is all they gave us : "on the 85th minute after a challenge by two players, a mass confrontation occured which resulted in the assistant manager from Oldham, Mr Gerry Taggart being sent from the technical area for violent conduct after he struck a Carlisle United player. He subsequently came in after the game to apologise."
Now we answered the charge on the basis of that, but when we got there on Wednesday morning two key things has changed, first of all the violent conduct charge against Gerry Taggart was changed to improper conduct on the basis that the referee had been asked to re-look at the video and then rewrote his report and said he didn't really see Taggart hit anybody.
So, they changed the whole basis of what we were arguing in mitigation that infact Taggart changed an ordinary incident into an extraordinary incident, and players grouped around simply because he was attacking them on the field of play.
PN
It seems incredible, if what you are saying there is that the referee effectively rewrote his report having seen the video evidence?
JN
Well, he will have looked at the video evidence and then put in a report that said that he didn't see him hit him (Tom Taiwo), and on the basis of that the FA took the easy line in my opinion, it is purely my personal opinion, took the easy line of changing the violent conduct to improper conduct.
Improper conduct effectively means that they are charging him with leaving his technical area, and he has actually, we were there, and he actually said that he never went in there and hit anybody, and that he went in there to seperate the players. Now, there was something like five or six thousand people saw a different situation to that, but that is not what they chose to see, they chose to listen to what was said.
PN
Do you feel as if the club's previously good behaviour, by and large, has been largely ignored in this case?
JN
Absolutely ignored, we put that part of the mitigation as well, we said that the club had an absolutely blemish free record. Oldham themselves by the way didn't have, but we had a blemish free record and there was nothing on our record to indicate that we had any particular issues with discipline.
Infact if you can recall, we did tell them on the match before when we played Exeter at home, the first foul that was given against a Carlisle United player was in the 68th minute. We are well in the top half of the fair play league, so we had every indication that we are a club that looks after discipline, and we were acting in a disciplined way, and they simply seemed to chose to ignore that. So, we did feel as though we had had some rough justice should we say.
PN
Have you had the chance as club to consider an appeal?
JN
No, we haven't, because what will happen, they have until Monday night to give us their reasons for fining us £3,500. Now, if we do go to appeal, and again I have got to say that I think that the FA process here has a big, big flaw in it, if we do appeal the chances are it will cost us between £1,500 and £2,500 to make that appeal, and we are appealing against a fine of £3,500.
If we win it and they reduce the fine, say to £1,000 then we are no better off, if we were to win it completely then we might save £1,000, but the risk element I think is probably going to be too high, and we may just have to accept that £3,500 has been lost because of I believe a flaw in the system and some rough justice as I said before.
PN
Just finally, around or about 5,000 tickets already sold today on the first day of sale for Wembley, a bit down on last year but enouraging nonetheless?
JN
Yeah, very encouraging, I think the fact that we have been there six times, I think the fact that we were there last year, and I think because of the economic situation that I am not really anticipating that we will take signficantly more than say 15,000.
The good news is that Brentford have sold all of their allocation, I think which is 22,000 and they have applied for more. Overall at the end of the day both teams share the gate, so if they can do well and we do as well as we can, and I think if we get over 15,000 we will do well this year, then we shall have a good final, it will be a good turnout, there will be a good shout and we will enjoy our day.