Angus Kinnear has revealed Leeds United have conceded defeat over the FA's punishment of Jordan Stevens.
The young Whites winger was handed a six-week blanket ban from all football activities for breaching the FA's gambling regulations last month, meaning that 19-year-old Stevens was banned even from entering the club's Thorp Arch training ground.
Kinnear had previously stated that Leeds were inquiring over whether Stevens would be able to work with the club's foundation during the ban, rather than see the teenager banished from the game completely, but has now stated that the club have had to give up on that idea.
"Our attempts to evolve Jordan Stevens' punishment, for a minor breach of betting regulations, into something more constructive have predictably ended in disappointment," he writes in the programme notes ahead of the Championship clash against West Bromwich Albion.
"As we have stated publicly, we strongly believed that the sanction of banning a young player from both the training ground and the stadium went against our collective duty of care for a young professional. We requested that Jordan be permitted to work for the Leeds United Foundation during his six-week suspension to provide him with some meaningful focus.
"After two weeks of deliberation, the FA's snappily titled Regulatory Legal Advocates Department concluded that he could work for the Foundation as long as this work was "not in the football context" (and for clarity added that if he even helped out in a primary school PE lesson he would be in breach of his suspension). The conundrum of how you can work for a football club's Foundation, yet not be "in the football context" has proved intellectually insurmountable and so we have conceded defeat."
Stevens therefore remains sidelined as Leeds welcome the Championship leaders to Elland Road.
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