THE FA is expected to deliver its verdict today on what to do with Millwall. We’re in the dock again, this time awaiting sentence. The FA has already found us guilty, although quite how, or why, is anyone’s guess. The club fear a large fine and maybe closure of the ground — either of which could push us over the edge.

Like most clubs outside the Barclays Premiership, we’re perennially in debt. We don’t do much tapping up of famous players. The fans get tapped up for the occasional donation, that’s about it.

The circumstances of Millwall’s conviction are bizarre. But we’re dealing here with the monumental arrogance and partisanship of the FA and its eagerness to score cheap political points. For those in Soho Square, there are teams that matter — the Premiership teams — and those that don’t — the rest. What’s happening to Millwall could have happened to any small club, from Tranmere Rovers to Brighton & Hove Albion.

Last October, Millwall played Liverpool in a Carling Cup game and got well and truly stuffed. There was quite a lot of violence at the game — all of it from the Liverpool fans. Some 68 seats were ripped out of the away end, coins were hurled at home supporters and a disabled Liverpool fan was injured by his comrades in the mêlée. Three Liverpool fans were arrested and convicted: no Millwall fans were arrested.

Quite rightly, the FA decided to investigate and in March this year, under its new chief executive, Brian Barwick (a Liverpool fan), pronounced Millwall guilty. Liverpool, meanwhile, seem to have been exonerated.

The FA decided that Millwall fans, and therefore the club, were guilty of racist chanting directed at Liverpool’s black defender, Djimi Traoré. They came to this conclusion despite neither the player nor Liverpool officials making any such complaint. Nor, during or directly after the game, did Liverpool supporters make a complaint of racism. Further, the Millwall stewards, who evict racists peremptorily, heard no racist chanting and neither did the Metropolitan Police.

That’s what they told the FA, too. Just to confirm this, I spoke to the police yesterday: they insisted that at no time were any complaints received; that they heard no racist chanting and that no Millwall fans were evicted for racist chanting. Rick Parry, the Liverpool chief executive, is believed also to have told the FA there was no allegation of racist chanting.

I was there, too. I heard Traoré being roundly jeered by the Millwall contingent — but that was because he had clattered Marvin Elliott, the Millwall midfield player (who is, with wholly predictable irony, black). The FA says it thought the jeering took the form of monkey noises, but I’m not sure what sort of monkeys they’ve been mixing with. It sounded to me — and to everybody else — like “boooo!” There was some pretty unpleasant chanting about the Hillsborough disaster, which may be what inflamed the Liverpool fans. But that wasn’t on the charge sheet.

Once an inquiry had been called, a handful of Liverpool fans retrospectively decided that Millwall’s antipathy to Traoré had been provoked by the colour of his skin and — astonishingly — the FA agreed, despite testimonies to the contrary from the police, Liverpool, the player and Millwall. So we face crippling costs from the threat of an unspecified number of games behind closed doors while the FA continues its sterling efforts to get Liverpool admitted to next season’s Champions League.

As I say, there are clubs that matter and clubs that don’t matter. Never mind the evidence, never mind the ripped-out seats and the hurled coins, never mind the proven incidences of racism at other Premiership clubs this past year, about which the FA did, well, FA. Stick the boot into a small club who have neither the clout nor the influential lobby to hit back. It doesn’t matter if it scuppers their season or, indeed, their existence: it’s only Millwall. Or Tranmere, or Brighton. Or any of the rest.

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