Trabzonspor president Ibrahim Ethem Haciosmanoglu and several members have received heft bans after a referee was locked in his club’s dressing room.
Haciosmanoglu was so incensed by referee Cagatay Sahan’s decision not to award the Turkish side a penalty late in last Wednesday’s 2-2 draw with Gaziantepspor that he ordered the official and his assistants to be locked in overnight.
The president revealed in a subsequent statement claiming he took the rash action in order to protect the ref.
“Our goal was to protect the referees from the crowd in Trabzon. We also arranged for the referees to leave the city without any problems.”
Sky Sports are reporting that they were released when Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan reportedly got wind of the situation and intervened.
The Turkish Football Federation were not too pleased and announced that Haciosmanoglu had been banned from carrying out his official functions for 280 days and fined 150,000 Turkish lira (€34,250).
Club directors Yakup Aslan and Ali Uzunay were suspended for 410 days apiece, while Koksal Guney, Omer Demir, Ali Kemal Basaran, Onur Incehasan, Seyfettin Tayfun Kahyaoglu and Mehmet Terzi were banned for a year. All eight were fined amounts between 200,000 and 260,000 TL (€445,000 – €60,000).
Suleyman Hurma was banned for 21 days and fined 25,00 TL (€5,700) and Trabzonspor will be forced to play two matches behind closed doors.
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