Dover Athletic Football Club have lost their appeal against a £40,000 fine and 12-point deduction handed to them by The National League.

They were punished by The National League for failing to fulfil four fixtures between February 16th and 27th this year after running out of funds to play the games.

Chairman Jim Parmenter pleaded at the time that the club had insufficient funds to pay the players and management due to Covid restrictions that didn’t allow fans into Crabble.

The rest of the National League carried on without Dover Athletic and their fixtures were later expunged from the record and the sanctions were handed out.

They launched an appeal to the FA, but that was unsuccessful and Dover Athletic must now also pay £1,600 in costs.

Dover Athletic had appealed on three grounds, including arguing the panel “came to a decision to which no reasonable body could have come” and that “the sanction was excessive”, but the FA disagreed with those arguments and have questioned what they appear to see as a lack of information from the club.

They say there were “no projections or forecasts placed before the panel to show what the club’s future would look like beyond the instant season”.

“For that reason,” they added, “it is impossible to see whether or not the club could afford to service the loan that was the Winter Survival Package.”

“Apparently that was a loan with a term of 20 years at a rate of 2% pa. No proper analysis was before the panel, nor this board, as to why that was not affordable.”

Chairman Jim Parmenter has subsidised Dover Athletic in the past with his own money and the FA findings added: “No breakdown of personal wealth was provided in respect of Mr Parmenter to show why he could not provide equity contributions as in previous years.”

“It was bare assertion by Mr Parmenter that he was unable to make equity contributions in the 2020/21 season to enable the club to fulfil its fixture obligations.”

The FA added: “No analysis was provided of costings to show whether savings were made or could have been made going forward so as to finish the season with its fixtures fulfilled and/or to service a loan”.

“The burden was on the club to provide all of this analysis and information. It was the only party with access to such information.”

“In our judgement it is appropriate for the losing party to pay the costs incurred by the appeal board,” the FA said.

“The club is therefore ordered to pay the sum of £1,600 within 30 days of receipt of this decision.”