SALISBURY CITY have this afternoon had their appeal against Football Conference expulsion dismissed by the Football Association.
Earlier today, the consortium who had hoped to save the club said they had been “monumentally stitched up by the FA and Conference” after they were told they were not the legal owners of the club, despite being set to go to court tomorrow to claim ownership of the Whites.
Salisbury were initially demoted from the Conference Premier to the Conference South before being kicked out of Non-League's top competition entirely at the beginning of July due to not paying football creditors.
Mark Winter, Jackie Goddard, David Phillips, Graeme Mundy and Jeremy Harwood formed a consortium to take back the club from Moroccan businessman Outail Touzar, who owns 98 per cent of the shares.
Touzar, along with Winter, purchased the club from former owner William Harrison-Allan but the former failed to put any of his promised funds into the club.
Regarding the appeal earlier today (Tuesday), the FA said: “The parties to the appeal, who were both given the full opportunity of attending the hearing at Wembley Stadium today, were Salisbury City FC Ltd under its present owners and The Football Conference.
“The Appeal Board decided not to allow the former owners of the Club to attend the hearing. The Appeal Board carefully considered a request from those former owners to take a full part in the appeal but came to the view that they had no legal standing to represent the Club.
“As a result of this appeal, Salisbury FC is no longer able to participate in any division of the Football Conference. The Club will be removed from the Football Conference fixture list for the coming season starting this Saturday, 9th August.”
