Trabzonspor club officials have been given quite a lengthy suspension by Turkish Football Federation following an incident that saw a referee was locked up in the dressing room after Trabzonspor drew with Gaziantepspor last week.
It all started when referee Cagatay Sahan didn’t award the host Trabzonspor penalty in the second half of the match. Sahan chose not to give a penalty though Gaziantepspor defender Aroyoko handled the ball inside the box moment before the final whistle of the match. The Trabzonspor players were furious with the decision and started to protest wildly on the pitch. Replays also showed the ball was handled, but Sahan either missed the incident or though it was not intentional.
The incident didn’t go well with club president Ibrahim Ethem Haciosmanoglu.
He then ordered, the referee and his assistants should be locked up in the stadium, but later president of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave the strict order to him to let the match officials go.
“I told stadium security not to let the referees leave until the morning until I arrived, but a very important person called me and asked me not to cause embarrassment in Turkey and around the world,” Haciosmanoglu later gave his statement.
He then, in yet another statement on the club’s official website said that he took the decision for the match officials’ own safety.
The statement, on Tuesday, read like that, “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.”
Now the Turkish Football Federation has banned Haciosmanoglu for stunning 280 days from carrying out any official duties, and also handed a fine of £34,250.
Moreover, two club directors have been handed 410-day bans, along with six other club officials are suspended for a year. All the eight officials fined between £45,000 and £60,000.
One more club official, Suleyman Hurma, banned for 21 days and fined £5,700. Not only that, Trabzonspor have to play two games in the Turkish League behind closed doors.