Fans behavior has ever been one of the biggest headaches for organizers especially if a match is being played between two big teams and visitors are about to defeat the hosts. Normally, it starts when hosts are trailing in the game and home fans start misbehaving the away fans, team, and even racial remarks happen over the players causing hosts’ defeat. Generally, governing bodies sanction home team to play next game in empty stadium as a punishment but remember match is played between two teams and this kind of sanction often becomes a forced punishment against the other team as well. Demand has long been made to find a solution to this problem where second team needs not to suffer on such sanctions and Tuesday’s Championship league clash between CSKA Moscow and Manchester City was one such game where CSKA had earlier been ordered to play the game in an emptied stadium. Since, City was not involved in any misconduct; they obviously raised the voice in front of the UEFA not to violate any rule by forcing them to play a fan-less game. City, although, drew the game by 2-2 but on aggregate they are now leading by 2-0 still they are taking themselves as the accused without any crime.
On the other side, European governing body has refused to accept that they have broken rule of law, they said in a statement, “Following the match between CSKA Moscow and Manchester City, UEFA has reviewed the officials’ reports and found no breach of the conditions related to a match played behind closed doors that make part of the disciplinary decision.
“Only people who were allowed to enter the stadium attended the match with no record of inappropriate behaviour. However, UEFA is reviewing the ‘behind-closed-doors’ policy to see if alternative solutions could be implemented in the future.”
Moreover, there is another complaint from league side that despite of ban there were many Russian fans who were around main stand of the Khimki Arena and watching the live game, though, UEFA’s chief of press Pedro Pinto has rejected these laps and said, “I think the club has already been penalised a lot, less than three per cent of the stadium capacity was in attendance.
“The club isn’t getting gate receipts and the players aren’t getting any meaningful support. If we say it’s behind closed doors, then it’s supposed to be behind closed doors to the general public, but there are always tickets given to VIPs, UEFA staff and sponsors. Our sponsors and partners pay a lot of money to be associated with the competition and are entitled to receive a number of tickets. They shouldn’t have to pay the price for the behaviour of others.’
“We can’t stop a limited number of sponsors and corporate guests from supporting their own team. If they decide to show up with a scarf or flag we can’t stop that.”