Turkey to play next six official home matches behind closed doors on neutral ground – Sanctions imposed on various individuals
Zurich, 7 February 2006 - The FIFA Disciplinary Committee met at FIFA headquarters in Zurich on Monday, 6 February and Tuesday, 7 February 2006 to discuss the incidents that occurred in connection with the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ preliminary competition match between Turkey and Switzerland in Istanbul on 16 November 2005.
Under the chairmanship of deputy chairman Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa (Bahrain), the committee, sitting as the body of first instance, passed the following decisions:
In the main proceedings against the Turkish Football Federation:
- the Turkish Football Federation is ordered to play its next six official home matches behind closed doors in a neutral venue in another country affiliated to UEFA with a minimum distance of 500km to the Turkish border. The Turkish Football Federation is ordered to pay all organisational costs with regard to these six matches.
- a fine in the amount of CHF 200,000 (+ procedural costs of CHF 20,000).
In the individual proceedings against:
a) Alpay Ozalan (Turkey, player)
- a suspension of six official matches of his representative team. This suspension is carried over to the representative team's next official matches.
- a fine of CHF 15,000 (+ procedural costs of CHF 1,000)
b) Emre Belozoglu (Turkey, player)
- a suspension of six official matches of his representative team. This suspension is carried over to the representative team's next official matches.
- a fine of CHF 15,000 (+ procedural costs of CHF 1,000)
c) Serkan Balci (Turkey, player)
- a suspension of two official matches of his representative team. This suspension is carried over to the representative team's next official matches.
- a fine of CHF 5,000 (+ procedural costs of CHF 500)
d) Mehmet Ozdilek (Turkey, assistant coach)
- a ban from taking part in any football-related activity (administrative, sports or any other activity), within associations, confederations or FIFA for 12 months as from notification of this decision.
- a fine of CHF 15,000 (+ procedural costs of CHF 1,000)
e) Benjamin Huggel (Switzerland, player)
- a suspension of six official matches of his representative team. This suspension is carried over to the representative team's next official matches.
- a fine of CHF 15,000 (+ procedural costs of CHF 500)
f) Stephan Meyer (Switzerland, physiotherapist)
- a suspension of two official matches of his representative team. This suspension is carried over to the representative team's next official matches.
- a fine of CHF 6,500 (+ procedural costs of CHF 500)
The decisions will now be sent to the relevant parties and will be followed up with a detailed, reasoned explanation within the next thirty days.
With the exception of the decisions against Serkan Balci and Stephan Meyer, all other first-instance decisions passed by the FIFA Disciplinary Committee may be taken to the FIFA Appeal Committee before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne may be called upon to act as the body of final instance in accordance with the FIFA Statutes.
(Not part of article) - FIFA and UEFA wanted to ban them from WC 2010 and Euro 2008 but gave them a lighter sentence.
"A 200,000 franc fine -- that's laughable! Six match bans for Turkey -- that's mild!" said the Zurich-based daily, Blick, after hearing Turkey's punishment.
This has happened with Turkey before and it has to stop.
Exhibit A: Turkey vs. England tunnel brawl October 30, 2003.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/foot...nd/3228375.stm
Video footage of brawl with England:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/video/39...ootball_vi.ram
Result: FIFA fines Turkey.
Exhibit B: Latvia vs. Turkey NEW tunnel brawl November 17, 2003.
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/SPORT/fo...7/euro.latvia/
Result: Three weeks after England brawl. FIFA let's them slide as the opposing team wasn't involved.
Turkey will decide on the 16th to play in either Germany, Georgia or Bulgaria for their home games. Germany has a large Turkish population but playing there could cause their fans to start trouble.
They could be better off playing in either Georgia or Bulgaria. IMO.
Turkey get heavy penalty
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