Atletico Madrid President Enrique Cerezo admitted yesterday his club's
disappointment at the decision of the Sports Arbitration Committee (TAS) to
maintain the one game sanction on the Vicente Calderon Stadium.
Atletico will have to play their Champions League group game against PSV
Eindhoven behind closed doors as a result of incidents during their match
against Olympique Marseilles in September.
That game was marred by crowd violence as Spanish police and French
supporters fought in the stadium.
Atletico were originally punished by a two-game closure and a fine. The
punishment was reduced to one game on appeal to UEFA. Now TAS has further
reduced Atletico's punishment by completely lifting the fine.
Nevertheless, Cerezo admitted he still felt his club had been harshly
treated, given that Atletico fans took no part in the incidents.
"I am disappointed, you should not be sanctioned when you have not done
anything. But we can not appeal to anyone now," he said on Radio Marca.
"As far as we believe, we have given the clearest demonstration possible, but
there was a neutral third party involved. I am disappointed because I hoped that
our appeal would be upheld.
"Cerezo took some comfort from the halving of the 150,000-euro (US$187,500)
fine, which had been originally imposed for racist chanting in the Calderon.
Atletico were able to show that what was at first considered to be monkey
chants, was in fact Atletico fans chanting "Kun" "Kun" for their striker Kun
Aguero.
"At least it has been shown that there were no racist or xenophobic attitudes
shown," he concluded.