MADRID, 9 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Appeal Committee of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) upheld this Thursday the allegations of Atlético de Madrid and annulled the partial closure of the Cívitas Metropolitano Stadium imposed by the Competition Committee for the racist shout at Athletic Club forward Nico Williams on April 27.
“Uphold the appeal filed by Club Atlético de Madrid against the resolution of the Disciplinary Committee dated April 30, 2024, revoking the contested agreement and annulling the financial penalty of €20,000 and the partial closure of the sports venue for two matches “Appeal indicated in its ruling.
The organization indicated that “the adoption of different preventive and reactive measures” by the red and white club after the incident was accredited. Atlético denounced that Competition did not evaluate the measures taken in all its home games, including “the reactive measures adopted after the incidents occurred.”
“In the opinion of this Committee, the adoption of a battery of preventive measures specifically related to the prevention of violence, racism, xenophobia and intolerance in sport, as well as the adoption of reactive measures that were adopted immediately after the occurrence of the chants. These measures appear in the report of the Party Director, listed in the second antecedent, and are therefore accredited,” noted Appeal.
In this sense, the resolution emphasizes “very particularly, and in order to justify the diligence” of the mattress team, that it “actively collaborated in identifying the person responsible for the incident.”
“Precisely, this active collaboration, the identification of the person responsible and the fact that it was an isolated incident, carried out by a single subject, as has been proven, and not by an undetermined group, allows us to affirm that the maximum possible diligence was taken on the part of the club, so the attribution of responsibility to it could only derive from an objective responsibility that is not what is provided for by regulations and is not admissible in the sanctioning area,” he added.
For this reason, the Appeal considered that Atlético deployed “both from the point of view of prevention and reaction, measures that demonstrate behavior of the greatest possible diligence, without being able to appreciate the existence of other measures that could have been adopted to prevent such events (preventive measures) or mitigate their severity (reactive measures).”
“Consequently, in light of the preventive and reactive measures adopted by the organizer, this Committee concludes that the club acted with the greatest possible diligence, therefore meeting the assumption of exoneration of responsibility provided for in article 15 of the Disciplinary Code. , the appeal was upheld, revoking the contested agreement and annulling the financial penalty of 20,000 euros and the partial closure of the sports venue for two games,” he ruled.