Feyenoord chairman Eric Gudde spoke to the NOS today about the measures the club will undertake to avoid further sanctions from UEFA this coming season when the club plays home matches in the Europa League.
- By James Rowe
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After crowd trouble during Feyenoord’s last Europa League home tie against Roma in February 2015, UEFA gave the club two suspended punishments of one match behind closed doors.
The club will try to avoid this punishment by introducing new measures this season, including reducing ”De Kuip” capacity to 26.000 from 51.000 for European matches.
Chairman Eric Gudde told NOS, ”With a heavy heart will feel that it is necessary to take the following measures for the upcoming European season first and foremost we are reducing the capacity to 26.000. We will also be placing nets around the pitch at 10 meters high in order to completely avoid fireworks or any other objects being thrown on the pitch which is one of the reasons why we received conditional punishment from UEFA after our last home European match against AS Roma in the season 2014 / 2015 and third and finally we will be organizing more stewards in attendance with searches beforehand.
”I admit that reduced the capacity of the stadium may well be viewed as an extreme measure but you must not forget what potential punishment is hanging about our heads from UEFA we still have a year of conditional punishment due to the throwing of fireworks and objects and also a 3 year conditional punishment due to racist utterances with these potential risks for example one cigarette lighter thrown on the pitch would mean that receive at least a one game ban which would be a shame for our home supporters.
”We estimate the financial losses which is also dependent on potential opponents to be around 300, 000 to 350,000 euros per match and extra measures costing around 100,000 – 150,000 euros too for all 3 home group matches. This is money which I would rather invest in our training complex or our youth development which is of much more use to our club.”
Feyenoord will learn their opponents in this years Europa League group stage later this week.
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