Kim Franklin KC chairs The FA arbitration tribunal deciding Nottingham Forest Football Club’s appeal
12th Sep 2025
Nottingham Forest Football Club’s social media post, following a match against Everton in April 2024, triggered a chain of legal proceedings arising from the Football Association’s regulations and sanctions procedures. After the Club’s application for details of the FA’s sanctions for social media offences was dismissed by an FA Commission, the Club objected to the same Commission chairman deciding subsequent charges brought by the FA following a match against Chelsea in October 2024. The Club alleged that the Commission’s dismissal of their submissions in the Everton case as ‘somewhat hysterical’ indicated apparent bias.
An FA arbitration tribunal comprising Lord Neuberger, Edwin Glasgow CBE KC with Kim Franklin KC as chair was appointed to decide whether the Commission’s chairman should be recused from deciding the Chelsea matter. In a decision provided in August 2025, the tribunal found that, applying the objective test for apparent bias, the words used were inappropriate and suggested a personal attack on the Club, sufficient to give rise to a real possibility of apparent bias.
The decision, which has been described as ‘a landmark case’ has attracted considerable media attention including:
