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October 14, 2008

It's the innocent fans who suffer the most

It's fair enough that UEFA should take steps to help eradicate racism from the game but their latest attempt seems ill-timed. They've decided to hand Atletico Madrid a 2 match stadium ban, which prevents their home games with Liverpool & PSV Eindhoven being played within 300km of Madrid.

About 3,000 Liverpool fans are going to the game, but most of them will now have to endure the expense of completely changing their travel arrangements. Also Atletico have until Sunday to appeal the decision which means fans will have to wait before making new arrangements.

It's probably better for Liverpool if the game is played at a neutral venue, but it's a shame that no consideration appears to have been given to the innocent fans who are affected by this.

9 comments:

Jessica said...

Anfield is over 300km away. Why not play it there ;-)

Anonymous said...

Yet another stupid deicision from the geniuses in UEFA.

Anonymous said...

torres might be a bit bummed about this but playing at a neutral ground might mean he plays a lot better for us

Paul Heron said...

@jessica - it's certainly an interesting idea, which I'm sure would placate most Liverpool fans, but what are the odds of UEFA and atletico agreeing ;-)

Anonymous said...

Why punish the fans? Because it's the fans to throw racist abuse to Marsaille players. But these fans are only a small number of them in the stadium. But then why not just punish AM fans, why LFC fans are punished as well? If the club failed to curb racism, have points removed from them.

Inderjit said...

Or they could play it behind closed doors with only liverpool fans allowed in. That would teach the atletico fans a lesson.

Abhiram said...

I feel for the fans as they miss out on one of the most anticipated game in the group stages of the Champions league. Having said that, i feel racial abuse is a very bad crime. If it has happened in Madrid, then the fans will have to pay the consequences. Sad, but true.

Paul Heron said...

@inderjit - there'd probably be riots outside the stadium if that were to happen !

@abhiram - racial abuse is a horrific crime and people should be punished for it, it's just a shame that innocent people have to suffer for it also :-(

Anonymous said...

it looks like the match will go ahead in madrid =

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/7672801.stm