Arsenal lost their appeal against Max Dowman’s red card at Fleetwood on a two-to-one vote, and the written reasons show how close the 16-year-old came to having it overturned.
The FA’s regulatory commission has now published why it threw the appeal out, and it confirms the three-game domestic ban stands. Max Dowman has already missed the 1-0 win at Liverpool on Sunday and will also sit out the next two Premier League games, against Hull City at the Emirates on Saturday and then Newcastle United.
The ban only covers domestic football, which is why he was able to come off the bench in stoppage time in Prague on Wednesday as Arsenal held on for a 2-1 win over Slavia.
What happened at Fleetwood?
The red came in the 86th minute of the Carabao Cup tie at Highbury Stadium. Dowman was caught by a strong tackle from Fleetwood Town defender Harrison Neal and kicked out at him in retaliation. He was sent off for violent conduct, and Arsenal went on to lose 5-3 on penalties after a 1-1 draw.
The written reasons also cleared up one detail. The decision to send Dowman off was taken by referee Michael Salisbury himself, not on the advice of another member of the officiating team.
How did Arsenal argue the case?
The club sent the commission two videos and a letter from club secretary Zayna Perkins. The letter made two arguments: that the red card was wrong, and that a three-game ban was “clearly excessive”.
Why was the Max Dowman appeal rejected?
The majority: he could have walked away
The two members in the majority accepted that Dowman took a forceful challenge he did not see coming. But they felt he had the option to “step out of this challenge without any reaction but he turned back towards Neal and his forceful attempt at a retaliatory kick gave the referee a decision to make”.
The minority: petulant, not violent
The third member saw it differently. In that view, Dowman’s actions were petulant rather than violent conduct, and “did not constitute a challenge made with excessive force or brutality”.
The ban itself: a unanimous no
On the second argument there was no split at all. The commission, made up of Udo Onwere, Stuart Ripley and Ray Olivier, unanimously rejected the claim that the punishment was clearly excessive, noting that the bar for that kind of appeal is a high one. Dowman’s age was ruled out as a relevant factor, and the panel found no “truly exceptional” reason to change the suspension.
What it means for Arteta
Mikel Arteta had already drawn a line under it before the Prague trip, calling the red card “a chapter that is gone” and saying the teenager had stayed super positive. Nothing in the written reasons changes the practical picture: Dowman is out of the Arsenal side to face Hull and the Newcastle game, and free to play in Europe.
Verdict: a close call that went the wrong way
A two-to-one vote tells you this was not the open-and-shut violent conduct case some made it out to be. One of the three members thought it was a petulant reaction from a 16-year-old who had just been clattered, not violent conduct. But the majority’s point is hard to argue with: he turned back towards Neal, and at this level that is all a referee needs.
The bigger lesson is the one Arteta keeps coming back to. Dowman is going to be kicked a lot, and the reaction is the part he controls. Three domestic games is a painful way to learn it, but at 16 there are far worse times to learn it than now.
