Atletico fine halved
Atletico Madrid will have to play Wednesday's Champions League match against PSV Eindhoven behind closed doors after a court of arbitration rejected an appeal against UEFA's punishment for crowd trouble.
European football's governing body sanctioned Atletico after crowd problems marred their Champions League home match with Marseille on October 1. There were also allegations of racist chanting by Atletico fans which the club denied.
UEFA said failures in the club's organisation led to confrontations between visiting fans and police and originally ordered to them play their following two European fixtures at least 300km outside Madrid, with a home stadium ban for a third game if there was further trouble.
Atletico appealed and the sanction was cut to one match played behind closed doors although a fine of 150,000 euros (£126,536) was upheld.
The club protested its innocence and took its case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport which ruled after a hearing in Lausanne on Wednesday.
"Having examined the arguments and evidence submitted by the parties, the CAS Panel, in line with UEFA, concluded that Atletico Madrid committed several serious security breaches during the match against Olympique Marseille which allowed the incidents to occur," the court said.
CAS said, however, that a suspended sanction of a second match behind closed doors was overturned, and the fine was reduced by half "in light of the fact that the racist acts alleged by UEFA could not be established with certainty".
It said it would publish more details about the reasons for its decision at an unspecified later date.
Atletico noted that the original punishment had been "considerably reduced".
It said CAS had backed its assertion "100 per cent" that there had not been any racist chanting.
Reuters
