Chelsea Fined, Clarke and Miles Told Off!

100 Years
By Could Have Been Worse
March 31 2005

UEFA this afternoon handed out their punishments to Chelsea, Jose, Clarkey and Les Mills for the fracas, altercation, lies and videotape during and after the Champions League 1st leg clash with Barcelona at the Nou Camp.

Chelsea was fined £33,000 for bringing the game into disrepute, Jose was banned with immediate effect for two matches. Immediate effect means that he cannot be on the touchline for the forthcoming two games against Bayern Munich (or to term a Soccer A.M. phrase) Bryan Munich. Jose was also fined £9,000. Clarkey and Security Officer Les Miles. Exactly what Chelsea has been punished for remains to be seen. 'Bringing the game into disrepute' without explanation seems a bit strange for a charge/punishment to be levied and dished out. However we are talking about and dealing with UEFA after all.

The punishments could have been worse, much worse - although Jose has the touchline ban, with Clarkey unpunished to the same degree, at least Chelsea will have at least one member of the coaching staff, assistant manager to boot, on the line for the Champions League Quarter-Final matches.

It is unlikely that Chelsea will appeal. Chelsea has released a statement to this effect and it is written in its entirety below:

 

Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck has announced that the club is not likely to appeal against the punishments handed out by UEFA at Thursday’s disciplinary hearing into the events in Barcelona - but will defer a final decision until Friday.

Buck, who attended the hearing in person, spoke to the media afterwards and said:

"The view of the club is that we would like to put this incident behind us. We are not likely to appeal but would like to reserve that decision until we see the reasoning of the panel, which we expect tomorrow.

"We are not overly happy with the decision but we certainly respect the decision made by the panel.

"It's been blown out of proportion. It was a serious matter and we're hoping to put it behind us."

Chelsea submitted written evidence to the UEFA Control and Disciplinary body. On the proceedings, Buck observed:

"In terms of the process, yesterday afternoon UEFA invited us to attend the hearing and we made the decision last night to come down here and participate.

"We think the hearing was a full and fair one. We were able to make our point and our statement and we were pleased with the proceedings."

To the suggestion that the 75,000 swiss franc fine imposed on Chelsea means little to the club, Buck reacted:

"We are running a business. Every 1,000 pounds or 1,000 swiss francs we spend, we spend carefully. So we don't look at it this way at all."