EFL Trophy expulsion inevitable after FA charges upheld: Here's why... and what each party must learn from sorry saga

And there we have it, another quiet Wednesday in the life of Swindon Town Football Club.

Expelled from the EFL Trophy after being dragged through three weeks of waiting, it’s hard to ignore the fog of self-pity resting over the County Ground tonight.

There have been no winners in this sorry saga. Not Swindon. Not the Football Association. Not the EFL. Well, perhaps Luton – particularly ironic given they didn’t actually win anything.

The reaction to the EFL’s verdict has seen plenty of frustration, plenty of upset, and more than a handful of scathing remarks about the perceived impartiality (or lack thereof) of football’s governing bodies in this country.

But, examined with an objective eye, was this not always going to be the outcome?

No? You disagree with me? Give me the opportunity to explain.

Swindon felt affronted by the charges from the moment they were made.

Inside the club, the atmosphere has been one of righteous anger, anger that spilled out in explosive fashion on the BBC Radio Wiltshire airwaves on Saturday evening courtesy of Hurricane Holloway.

Ian Holloway and the club’s executive management have been adamant all along that they have been wronged. A Town statement on Wednesday described the EFL’s decision to expel them from the Trophy as “unfair”.

With all the available evidence currently at hand, however, it is hard to see how the outcomes could have been any more lenient.

The written reasoning behind both FA and EFL decisions will be published in the next fortnight or so, and those documents – if presented unredacted - will shed useful light on mitigating factors, the evidence presented by Swindon, and how the verdicts were reached.

In the meantime, The Moonraker can only use the details in the public arena already, and further reporting, to illustrate how events unfolded, and why decisions have been made.

In isolation, Aaron Drinan’s ‘ghost substitute’ escapade is unlikely to have been enough to trigger expulsion from a competition.

There was fault on the part of Swindon, who submitted a teamsheet in error to the officials.

As previously reported by The Moonraker, clubs no longer physically write participating players on paper – the matchday squads are submitted via an app.

The app lists players' names by squad number. Drinan (23) and Ryan Tafazolli (17), who was included in error, were separated by three players available that night. On mobile, where the names are stacked on top of each other, that would create a significant gap between the two. On tablet, the app presents the players in lines of three, potentially creating a situation where Drinan and Tafazolli’s names were in close proximity.

It was an innocent mistake, albeit avoidable with extra scrutiny at the time.

In particular, fourth official David Hutton ought to have prevented the substitution from taking place, given Drinan’s name did not feature on the list in front of him.

The EFL do not generally make public any sanctions on matchday officials. The most typical punishment for failures to maintain standards is a 14-day suspension.

Hutton has not been given an EFL appointment for any matchday across the divisions since the game at Kenilworth Road. It could be a coincidence; The Moonraker has asked the EFL for clarity.

The teamsheet error, then, could be explained away – as other similar incidents have been in the past.

Multiple cases of clubs fielding ineligible players only to end up with fines have been highlighted by disappointed and aggrieved Swindon supporters.

Those that have cropped up include:

Ji Dong-won, who made four Premier League appearances and turned out in the EFL Cup for Sunderland in 2014 despite not having international clearance.

Pedro Chirivella, who played for Liverpool in an EFL Cup match against MK Dons in 2019, again without international clearance.

Elyh Harrison, who turned out for Shrewsbury Town in this season’s EFL Trophy without explicit permission that he could play from his parent club Manchester United.

Clarke Uduor, who was picked by Grimsby Town for their EFL Cup clash with United in September 2025 after not being registered prior to the relevant deadline.

In each of these examples, the clubs in question were found to have made clerical errors, with mitigating factors that gave the EFL’s disciplinary body reason not to enforce hefty sanctions.

In the cases of Ji and Uduor, their clubs self-reported their breaches on discovery.

If the confusion over Drinan had been the only matter at hand, it is entirely plausible that Swindon’s situation would have been judged a clerical error and therefore followed a similar punitive route, although we won’t know for sure until the written reasoning is published.

The fine that was applied is the equivalent of the prize money Swindon received for beating Luton, and appears to be a relatively standard punishment for a clerical error such as the Drinan ‘ghost substitution’.

It is the Clarke element – a player effectively flouting a significant suspension – that was the kicker.

Clarke was banned by an FA disciplinary panel in December for seven matches over misconduct allegations that dated back to an EFL Cup match at Cardiff City in August.

The severity of the suspension related to the seriousness of the allegations, which included accusations of graphic and indecent foul play on two Cardiff players.

No empirical evidence had been presented to Clarke’s initial FA hearing, much to the club’s chagrin. Holloway has said that had the complaints been submitted to the police, they would have been unprosecutable.

Clarke has always been a model professional, he has been a PFA representative, and is a dressing-room leader and father. No previous allegations of this sort of behaviour have been labelled against him.

The whole episode left a raw contention at Swindon. Clarke’s tacit admission of the charges – regardless of whether this was done to alleviate the length of the process or the ban – did the Town skipper no favours.

However, the details of the case were rendered irrelevant to the Luton furore the moment Clarke was served with a charge letter by the FA.

In the charge letter, the wording around his punishment was clear.

It outlined “a 7-match ban starting on 19/12/25 which applies to all domestic club football until such time as Swindon Town FC have completed seven (7) First Team Competitive Matches (Category 1) in approved competitions.”

The argument over whether the EFL Trophy counts as a first-team competitive match is a red herring. He was to sit out “until such a time as Swindon Town FC have completed seven” games.

By the time the Luton match came around, the Robins had played four.

The FA went so far as to confirm to the Swindon Advertiser in the buildup to the Luton trip that Clarke would have to miss that game.

In mitigation – the club engaged local lawyers to represent their interests, the same firm that had assisted with the initial Clarke case – Town stressed that the FA’s online disciplinary portal had not displayed their captain as ineligible for the fixture.

Until we see the written reasoning, it is hard to make further comment on this part of the affair. Such is Swindon’s determination that they are right, and given the softness of the FA’s sanctions, it is likely that there is a mitigating factor relating to the portal.

However, the charge letter and the terms of the original suspension take precedence. And the suspension encompassed seven of Swindon’s first-team games.

With the FA ruling the ineligibility claims against Clarke proven, the writing was on the wall for Swindon at the EFL hearing.

The league would have had to think about the precedent it would set by allowing a club to field a player banned from all domestic football, to considerable public interest and outcry, only a matter of days earlier.

The Moonraker has been told that on one occasion in the aftermath of the Luton game, an EFL figure made an informal suggestion that Swindon should consider withdrawing from the competition.

The momentum of this whole sorry sideshow was only ever heading in one direction.

At this juncture, it would be incumbent on all parties to reflect on the lessons that need to be learned.

For the Football Association, there is a very real requirement to examine the timelines of their regulatory investigations. After the Cardiff allegations took four months to get to a verdict, there was then a fortnight gap between charges being labelled against Swindon and Clarke over the Luton debacle and a decision being applied.

Why the wheels move so slowly is unclear. Why the additional one-game ban given to Clarke had to wait until 5pm the day before a game is not only unclear but entirely unnecessary.

While Holloway’s thunderous rant last weekend was unsightly, he did have a pertinent point: those actions were disruptive to the extent of appearing vindictive.

The FA must evaluate its disciplinary process to allow managers and players due time to prepare for competitive fixtures.

Furthermore, the governing body’s disciplinary and regulatory panels ought to be tied to uniform wording when delivering their sanctions.

The phraseology of Clarke’s ban – that it spanned a number of games played by the team, rather than applying directly to the player – is not always followed.

Flick through the written reasoning for other recent verdicts, and different panels use different wording to cast judgement.

To avoid unnecessarily confusions, the verdicts should follow a standardised template.

The EFL, who presumably needed to wait until the FA verdict before conducting their own hearing, have strung three sets of supporters along for more than three weeks.

While concessions have been made to the timing of Luton’s quarter-final against Plymouth Argyle, a timelier process would have given clarity to everyone – and afforded a little respect to the fans.

And then there’s the club, who have promised to “reflect, learn from what has happened, and make sure we continue to meet the highest standards in everything we do.”

As each of the ugly dominoes has fallen in this godforsaken saga, Swindon have given the sense they feel they are the victims. In part, that sentiment is understandable.

However, it is critical that the club does not allow that feeling to blind them to the very real errors which have led to a potentially very costly outcome. Town were two games from Wembley, after all.

There has been excessive criticism of club secretary Alisha Henry online. While mistakes may have ultimately been hers, there are mitigating factors here too which demand consideration.

The number of support staff at the club with detailed rules and regulations knowledge has dropped over recent months. Only 18 months ago, the head coach was supported by a head of football (Jamie Russell), club secretary (Jamie White) and football operations manager (Baillie Coupland), all of whom could offer oversight on administrative matters.

Today, the club secretary is pretty much a lone ranger. In replacing White, Henry effectively took on a large amount of Coupland’s work too. Swindon is run on a skeleton staff behind the scenes, which can lead to individuals having to take on multiple roles concurrently. This is not always conducive to quality outcomes.

Holloway was right to vociferously speak up for Henry in recent days, in yet another example of the manager having to do far too many different jobs himself. The c-suite at Swindon Town has been conspicuous by its loss of voice throughout the past month.

‘Admin error’ has become a common stick with which to beat the club. It has become a meme. But there is a danger that the entire club becomes a meme: one mistake being followed by a commitment to learning from the mistake, only for another, similar mistake to be made.

This perpetual cycle of self-defeat has repeated on so many occasions that, to many looking in from outside, it has become the club’s very persona. That needs to change.

Yet, this Saturday lunchtime, the most appropriate response from anyone of a Swindon persuasion – ownership, fanbase, players, or management – is a ferocious display against Oldham Athletic.

The only thing that matters on the pitch now is promotion from League Two. Perhaps that unified goal can refocus everyone as quickly, and as quietly, as possible. Perhaps.