Birmingham City, Hull City fallout involving Jay Stansfield continues - FA regulations have been breached | OneFootball

Birmingham and Hull were both fined over their clash in October, but indiscipline has been a growing problem for the Blues for a long time.

The fallout has continued from the bad-tempered match between Birmingham City and Hull City in October which resulted in a war of words between the two clubs.

Birmingham City and Hull City have both been fined by the Football Association over a fracas during their match at St Andrew's in October which led to a war of words in the managers' press conferences after the match and which resulted in Birmingham issuing a strongly-worded statement after the match refuting allegations made by the Hull boss Sergej Jakirovic.

Hull won the match 3-2, Birmingham's first home defeat since April 2024, but the result was overshadowed by the incident and the fallout from it. The intervention of the FA has now resulted in fines for both clubs for failing to ensure their players/technical area staff did not behave in an improper way.

Birmingham City and Hull City fined by FA over touchline fracas at St Andrew's

BBC Sport report that Birmingham have been fined £115,000 and that this is their sixth breach of FA regulations regarding player behaviour since the start of last season, while Hull City have been fined £25,000. Both clubs had admitted misconduct over the incident.

Birmingham striker Jay Stansfield, Hull forward Joe Gelhardt and two members of coaching staff were shown yellow cards by referee Ruebyn Ricardo after a fracas which was sparked by two challenges from either side.

The FA's written reasons for its decision confirm that Birmingham's bigger fine was decided upon because of "BCFC’s poor record of Misconduct, not just in the preceding 12 months, but over the relevant period of 5 [five] seasons", stating that, "the regularity with which the breaches occurred demonstrated a consistent failing by the club to control its players".

By comparison, the FA committee found that, "HCFC have no previous breaches at a First Team level of FA Rule E20 in the current playing season, as well as the preceding 5 [five] season period", although they did "have 2 [two] previous proven breaches of FA Rule E20 in the past 12 months at youth level".

After the match, the Hull manager, Sergej Jakirovic, claimed that he had been told to "go back to Croatia" by a Birmingham security officer during the fracas, an allegation which was subsequently strongly denied by the club in an official statement.

A lack of discipline on the part of their players and staff is starting to become an expensive business for Birmingham City. It's been less than two months since they were fined £100,000 for failing to control their players at the end of their match against Ipswich Town on the opening weekend of the season.

This is a pattern which has been consistent over some period of time and which the FA has highlighted as a growing concern. When they were involved in a similar incident during an EFL Trophy match against Shrewsbury Town in October 2024, the club were specifically criticised for ‘taking no proactive steps to address recurring behaviour’ and tripled their fine from £2,500 to £7,500.

These repeated breaches of discipline are rapidly becoming a serious issue for Birmingham. After another incident during a match against Bolton Wanderers last season, Birmingham World described the problem as "a worrying trend at Birmingham City that manager Chris Davies needs to address".

The fact that these fines are escalating would seem to indicate that patience over this sort of thing repeatedly happening is starting to run out at the FA, and with the Hull incident having occurred 11 days after the £100,000 fine over the Ipswich fine was handed out, it may well be that if Birmingham do not finally get a grip on this problem once and for all, other forms of punishment beyond fines may start to be handed out.