The Appeals Committee of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) reduced from five to three games the penalty for the partial closure of a stand at the Mestalla Stadium due to the incidents last Sunday between Valencia and Real Madrid and the racist insults against the Real Madrid player Vinicius Jr.
As reported by the body in its resolution this Friday, it has decided to partially uphold the appeal made by the Valencian team and leave the closure of the ‘Grada Mario Kempes’ of the fiefdom ‘che’ in three games, in addition to lowering the economic fine of the 45,000 euros imposed by the Competition Committee to 27,000.
The Appeal decision comes one day after it rejected the “urgent” precautionary measure of the punishment imposed by Competition requested by Valencia, something that the Valencian club requested again in its new appeal.
The ‘che’ team claimed the invalidity of the court decision “for not following the procedure that was actually indicated and thus rendering them defenseless, not having been able to analyze the video evidence either because it had been sent to them only a few hours before”, for having proven “diligent compliance of their obligations and the adoption of the required preventive measures” and for understanding that “at least the facts should not have been classified as seriously as they were and appreciate the concurrence of an attenuating circumstance”.
In this sense, Appeal dismisses the aspect of defenselessness and stresses that “there are two relevant facts when debugging the responsibility” of Valencia as the “evident” that there were “clearly racist chants or insults” and that they also disturbed “notoriously ” the development of the game, which “hold the local club responsible for what happened”.
In addition, he reminds Valencia that he is “no stranger” to these chants from that sector of the stadium since he has been the subject of “the opening of numerous files” that, “for the most part”, has ended with “disciplinary sanctions”. “This, without a doubt, allows us to conclude that the club is aware of the place in its stadium where there is a greater risk or possibility of events such as those that occurred last weekend, which, in turn, determines that it is the responsibility of the club to decision-making with that sector of the stands so that incidents of this nature do not occur”, adds the resolution.
In addition, he considers the lack of foresight and diligence “attributable to the club” that there were also racist chants in the vicinity of Mestalla, which denoted “great animosity” towards VinÃcus and the existence of a hostile climate that, without a doubt, must have made the club and its security services “extreme preventive measures” so that something similar does not happen inside the stadium.
Of the same, the committee points out that despite the “diligent compliance” of the obligations of the Valencian club in prevention measures, it cannot “exonerate it from responsibility because, although it adopted many measures, it has been shown that they were insufficient or that they should have been intensified In view of the precedents of incidents, precisely in that sector of the stands”.
However, Appeal also believes that “the actions implemented by Valencia were not sufficiently taken into account” in the Competition opinion, “including the mitigation” that it presented in its appeal. “Consequently, the appeal can be partially upheld, reducing the penalty to partial closure for a period of three games and the corresponding reduction in the fine to 27,000 euros,” he says.
