New sanctions on Iranian Sepahan over Soleimani statue sports

The Asian Football Confederation imposed a fine on the Iranian Sepahan Club amounting to $200,000 and prevented it from playing at the Taqash-e-Jahan Stadium after canceling its match against the Saudi Al-Ittihad in the AFC Champions League in early last October.

The Continental Union counted Al-Ittihad as a 3-0 winner in the match, which was canceled after Al-Ittihad players refused to enter the field due to the placement of a statue of the late Iranian general. Qasem Soleimani At the entrance to the stadium.

The Iranian club will not be allowed to play the next two matches in the tournament at home against Uzbekistan’s AGMK next Monday and the Iraqi club Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya on November 27, with the third match suspended amid a 3-year stadium ban.

The AFC Disciplinary Committee said Sepahan’s action “created an unsafe and unstable environment” and “caused damage to the reputation of the AFC, the AFC Champions League and Asian football in general.”

The incident occurred in the city of Isfahan on October 2, when the match was canceled minutes after it was scheduled to start, in the presence of about 60,000 fans in the stadium.

The Saudi Al-Ittihad score rose to 9 points from 3 matches, at the top of the Group C standings, 5 points ahead of Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya and Sepahan, while “AGMK” is at the bottom of the standings with no points.

Qasem Soleimani, a prominent general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, was killed near Baghdad airport in a US drone strike in January 2020.

This year’s AFC Champions League is the first since 2016 in which clubs from both countries are allowed to play each other home and away.