November 5 – After one of the most unusual and extraordinary cases of misconduct, Ibrahim Haciosmanoglu (pictured), chairman of top-flight Turkish club Trabzonspor, and several of his board members have been given lengthy bans for locking a referee in the dressing room until the early hours of the morning.
The incident happened last week after the official failed to award Trabzonspor a penalty. The referee and three other officials were only released under security escort after the personal intervention of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
The Turkish Football Federation announced that Haciosmanoglu had been suspended from carrying out his official functions for 280 days and fined 150,000 lira ($53,000).
It also ordered the club to play two matches behind closed doors.
An enraged Haciosmanoglu ordered referee Cagatay Sahan and his assistants to be detained after Trabzonspor were denied a penalty in the dying minutes of their league match with Gatiantepspor that ended in a 2-2 draw.
Haciosmanoglu later explained his reasons for detaining the officials in a statement on the club website, saying the measures were taken to protect the officials from an angry crowd. “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,” he said.
Two board members were given bans of 410 days and six others were banned for a year as well as being fined.
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