CEO explains the process behind Dean Henderson's ban
Shrewsbury Town have decided that they won’t be appealing the three-match ban given to Dean Henderson for improper conduct during this month's game with Blackburn Rovers.
Henderson got banned late last week after a disciplinary process, but Shrewsbury Town didn’t receive the formal reasoning behind the decision until yesterday.
“We got the written reasons yesterday”, Brian said.
“The way I understand it is they go on the basis of probability. If there’s a probability that something happened and they think it has happened then the commission have the right to say yes or no, so it’s not like going into a court where you are innocent until proven guilty.
“There are certain things that I’m not happy with in terms of the process and I flagged that up at the weekend with an email looking for some answers in relation to how evidence is gathered and various bits and bobs.
“I’ve also been keen to see if Blackburn have been charged in all this to be honest. Whilst you can’t condone anything that happened, the fact that two of our players have been hit with coins isn’t good and I’m sure Blackburn will be really keen to improve on how that’s been handled going forward.”
After receiving the FA’s written response the club have decided not to pursue an appeal as Brian didn’t feel it would be worthwhile.
“I spoke to Paul this morning about an appeal and we just don’t think it’s worthwhile”, Caldwell said.
“You look at the process and you feel that there is the potential that they could add another game or games (to Dean’s ban) if they feel that we did appeal and they have already made their decision, so it is a bit of a fine line sometimes.
Although Town have decided not to appeal, Caldwell is worried about how the process was handled and the fact that Dean was banned prior to the club receiving the written reasons.
“This has happened the last two times now”, said Brian.
“You get the decision but you don’t actually get the written reasons and they aren’t obliged to give the written reasons until two days later.
“We were in a situation where they were releasing statements about Dean’s punishment but we don’t actually have the written reasons as to why they’ve come to this decision until yesterday afternoon.
“Had we wanted to appeal it we wouldn’t have had the written reasons to appeal it, so you could have had the situation where we did want to appeal it, but in the meantime Dean’s missed one game.”