Excerpts from Jordan Hulme's recent disciplinary hearing:
IN THE MATTER OF A FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION INDEPENDENT REGULATORY COMMISSION BETWEEN: THE FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION and MR JORDAN HULME; AFC FYLDE.
WRITTEN REASONS AND DECISION OF THE INDEPENDENT REGULATORY COMMISSION FOLLOWING THE HEARING ON 1 APRIL 2021The Facts7. Mr. Hulme signed for AFC Fylde in or around October 2020. Prior to that he was contracted to Altrincham FC and, before that Salford City FC. He started his career as a Non-League Player and has played at various clubs from the age of 18.
8. Mr. Hulme has not received any training in social media usage or best practice. He has 3,826 followers on his official UK Instagram account. This is a public account which is open to anyone to follow him and view the content that appears on his Instagram page and story board.
9. On 7 January 2021 he published an Instagram story on his Instagram account. This post was a screen shot of a newspaper article displaying the headline: “Wu Joking?” along with the comments: “Wuhan mocks UK’s Covid hell, vows to hold more parties and tells Brits to ‘get used to it’”. Below the screen shot of the newspaper article, Mr. Hulme added the comment: “Bat eating freaks” along with an emoji of a bat and a further emoji of someone being sick. The post deleted automatically after 24 hours.
10. Mr. Hulme’s girlfriend had contracted the virus over the Christmas period. They had hosted their family, including elderly grandparents. Two days after Christmas his girlfriend’s symptoms began, and after this, others in the family quickly became infected. His grandfather suffers with poor health and there was concern that if he contracted the virus he may not survive. Thankfully, this was not the case. However, it was during this stressful time, and whilst awaiting the results of his grandfather’s Covid test that he posted the article and the comments. Given the health risks to his family member, to which he had been looking into the Covid 19 virus online, there were a number of ‘sponsored posts’ which had started to appear on his Instagram feed. He stated that the post was directed at the cause of the outbreak and the people that had chosen to eat bats.
Conclusion 36. The Regulatory Commission came to the unanimous decision, having carefully considered the relevant factors, and have imposed the following sanction;
(i) He is suspended from all domestic club football with immediate effect until such time as the Club with which he is registered have completed SIX First Team competitive Matches in an approved competition.(ii) Fined the sum of £900.
(iii) Ordered to attend a mandatory face-to-face education programme the details of which will be provided to the Player by The Football Association. That programme is to be completed within a four month period commencing with the date of the Decision letter dated 1 April 2021. If the Player fails to satisfactorily complete the programme in that period, he will be immediately suspended from all domestic club football until such time as the mandatory programme is so completed. Given the ongoing pandemic if, for any health and safety related reason, the programme cannot be delivered face-to-face within the four months indicated then, with the permission of The Football Association, the programme may be undertaken by means of video-conference and/or there may be a reasonable extension of the time period allowed for completion.
37. He is ordered to make a contribution towards the costs of the Commission of £450.
To read the full report of the Regulatory Commission, type in 'Hulme' as a search in the Individual Name box:
https://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/discipline/written-reasons