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Atletico Madrid disappointed by TAS ruling

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-11-21 11:37

MADRID -- Atletico Madrid President Enrique Cerezo admitted on Thursday 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 ($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.