Former West Ham United head of recruitment Tony Henry has been banned from all football activity for a period of 12 months following comments he made earlier this year about not wishing to sign African players.
Henry was sacked by West Ham after his comments, written in an email to an agent, suggested that the club would no longer try to sign African players because they 'have a bad attitude' and 'cause mayhem' when out of the team.
BREAKING: Former @WestHamUtd Head of Player Recruitment Tony Henry suspended from all football-related activity for 12 months. #SSN
— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) July 5, 2018
Following an investigation in early February, the Hammers felt that Henry's comments were 'unacceptable' and dismissed the former Manchester City player with immediate effect.
As part of the sanctions against him, the 60-year-old must now attend a FA education course.
Henry publicly apologised for his behaviour in May following a formal FA charge.
"I was wrong for what I said. I'm not trying to get out of this. I've been charged by the FA. This is not me saying 'what I said was right'. It was wrong, and I totally apologise," he told Sky Sports.
"I just want to say that I'm sorry. I want to apologise most to the African players, the players of African descent, but also everybody because I feel I've let them down.
"It was never, ever meant to be racist in any way. The reason we said we didn't want any more Africans was because we already had three. The day before we'd had four, but one of them left.
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"I just felt that, as a head of recruitment, I look ahead down the line and I thought that, in 12 months' time, it's the African Nations Cup. If we had four African players, come the African Nations Cup, we are going to lose them in January and February, and we could struggle with that."