Lee Steele fined £200 for Gareth Thomas tweet
Lee Steele has been fined £200 for a comment he posted on Twitter about Gareth Thomas, the FA has announced.
The sacked footballer apologised for his January comment but was charged by the governing body.
He had been referring to the openly gay rugby player’s appearance on Celebrity Big Brother.
Steele was found to have breached the FA’s Rule E3(1): “A Participant shall at all times act in the best interests of the game and shall not act in any manner which is improper or brings the game into disrepute or use any one, or a combination of, violent conduct, serious foul play, threatening, abusive, indecent or insulting words or behaviour.”
The FA said the striker was “severely warned as to his future conduct” in addition to the £200 fine.
Semi-professional club Nantwich Town FC took Steele on after he was released by Oxford City FC, who said his message was at odds with the ethos of the club.
A statement in January said the comment was “made tongue in cheek at the time and Lee would like to apologise for this and any offence that this has caused and would also like to stress that he is not homophobic in any way.”
