Corinthians fans barred after flare death
Reuters - Friday 22 February 2013, 05:28
Holders Corinthians will play their home matches in the Libertadores Cup
behind closed doors after fans were accused of killing a young Bolivian
supporter with a flare, South American football body CONMEBOL said on
Friday.
A Bolivian prosecutor
charged two Corinthians fans with homicide and 10 others of trying to
cover up for them after the 14-year-old was killed during San Jose's 1-1
home draw against the Brazilian side in Oruro on Wednesday.
"Corinthians
have been sanctioned so that all their home matches are [played] behind
closed doors in the Libertadores," Nestor Benitez, spokesman for
Conmebol, the South American Football Confederation, told Reuters.
"In
addition, clubs playing at home against Corinthians have been
prohibited from selling tickets for Corinthians' fans. That is to say,
their fans wont be able to see the matches at all," Benitez said.
The
decision covers the whole tournament, scheduled to end in July, until CONMEBOL's disciplinary committee issues a definitive ruling on the
case, Benitez added.
Corinthians
said it would appeal the ban using all legal means, calling the
punishment "unjust" because it "directly harms the rights of the
innocent."
"The measure harms
not just the club but principally the more than 80,000 fans who have
already bought tickets for the team's three home games in Group 5,"
Corinthians said in a statement. "They don't deserve that punishment."
Oruro
prosecutor Abigail Saba told reporters she had made charges after
interrogating 12 Corinthians fans arrested at the match for launching
the flare that killed the boy and was meant to celebrate their team's
early goal.
Saba said she was
investigating "a crime with the death of a minor", Bolivian newspaper
La Razon reported on its website.
CONMEBOL's decision is a major blow to Corinthians, the Sao Paulo club
that won the Libertadores Cup for the first time last July before
beating Chelsea to win the Club World Cup in December.
The
ban means their famously passionate fans will be excluded from next
Wednesday's visit to Sao Paulo by Colombia's Millonarios and later home
matches in Group Five against Tijuana of Mexico and San Jose.
The
Brazilians were playing their first match in the defence of the trophy
when the incident occurred early in the match after Peru striker Paolo
Guerrero gave them the lead in the fifth minute.
The
game continued and the teams played out a 1-1 draw with Carlos Saucedo
putting San Jose level at the Jesus Bermudez stadium in Oruro, a mining
city 3,700 metres above sea level.
The
boy was identified as San Jose supporter Kevin Beltran, and angry
Bolivians in the crowd chanted "murderers" at Corinthians fans, while
the Brazilian team's coach Tite said: "I would exchange my world title
for the boy's life."
FLARE DEATHS
The club declared a week of mourning and said players would wear black armbands for their next two matches.
Local
media said the remnants of the flare did not correspond to the kind
seen in Bolivia, where ardent football supporters or demonstrators use
carton fireworks with no plastic parts, suggesting it may have been
brought into the country.
It was not the first death from a flare at a football match with at least three previous incidents.
In
1993 at World Cup Qualifying game between Wales and Romania in Cardiff,
a fan was killed by a flare which was fired across the pitch and into
the neck of an elderly man.
Guillem
Lazaro, a 13-year-old Spanish boy, was killed in March 1992 by a flare
that hit him in the chest at Espanyol's old Sarria stadium in Barcelona
on his first visit to a match.
In
August 1983, Argentine Racing Club fan Roberto Basile, who was 26, was
hit in the throat and killed by a flare shot horizontally the length of
the pitch at Boca Juniors' La Bombonera.
Fans regularly take flares into matches in South America, sneaking them in past lax security checks.
Brazilians
fans and media roundly condemned the incident on Thursday but they also
stressed it was not out of keeping with the often riotous surroundings
in which South American games are played.