The Football Association has found a referee guilty of improper conduct, suspended him for eight weeks and fined him £100 for a tweet he posted in April making offensive comments about the Hillsborough disaster and Liverpool people. Craig Langton, a Nottingham firefighter and level 4 qualified referee who was listed to officiate at an FA Cup extra preliminary round match last season, posted the tweet to Charlotte Hennessy. She was six years old in April 1989 when her father, James, was one of the 96 Liverpool supporters killed at the FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough.
In published written reasons, a three-person Nottinghamshire FA discipline commission found that Langton’s comments were offensive, at a particularly sensitive time, given the new inquests into the disaster. Langton admitted sending the tweet on the morning of Saturday 4 April “whilst he was still in bed”.
He admitted the charge – although the commission noted: “Bluntly, bearing in mind the screen shot evidence, he had little choice other than to make the admission.”
The commission found that, although Langton accepted he had made a “huge mistake” and his tweet was “badly worded,” he “did not seem to show any real understanding of the offence/distress he had clearly caused by his tweet”.
The commission’s written reasons, detailing Langton’s suspension from all football activity including refereeing from 3 August, the beginning of the football season, until 11 October, noted that while he had admitted the charge, when requesting a personal hearing Langton had stated: “I do not agree with the charge of improper conduct. I need to offer my side of the facts. I have not intended to offend anyone.”
Charlotte Hennessy told the FA in her complaint that her father’s death had devastated her life. “I attend the [new] inquests [into the disaster] every week and am struggling to come to terms with all of this new evidence. I have done absolutely nothing to justify such disgusting comments.”
She also complained to the Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service, where Langton is a long-serving firefighter, and has been told it is conducting an internal investigation. She said she did not want Langton to lose his job or have his livelihood affected but did believe the FA should discipline him, as football’s governing body and host of the 1989 FA Cup semi-final at which her father and the 95 other people died.
Langton told the commission he had apologised in writing to her, via the Fire Brigades Union which had sent her a letter. Langton’s local FBU did post on its Facebook page a statement from Langton which said: “I wish to issue an unreserved public apology. My tweet lacked thought or consideration for those who have been affected by Hillsborough.”
Charlotte Hennessy told the Guardian she has received no apology and no one involved in the FBU had contacted her to ask for an address.
She said she is pleased the FA had taken the incident seriously and sanctioned Langton but remains concerned at the commission’s findings about Langton’s attitude. “I am glad the FA has taken action and appreciated the seriousness of this,” she said. “But I’m saddened that Mr Langton does not appreciate the offence he caused – to the daughter of somebody who died at Hillsborough.
“I am defending my dad’s good name; these comments offended me and my family and caused distress to survivors.”
Langton has not commented publicly since making that apology via the FBU’s Facebook page.
