Trabzonspor chairman Ibrahim Haciosmanoglu and several of the Turkish club’s board members have been given lengthy bans after a referee was locked in a dressing room for several hours at their stadium.
Last week, Haciosmanoglu locked four match officials in the stadium overnight for failing to award his team a penalty, only to release them under escort from special forces after a phone call from Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
The Turkish Football Federation announced on Wednesday that Haciosmanoglu had been suspended from carrying out his official functions for 280 days and fined 150,000 Turkish lira (US$52,237). It also ordered the club to play two matches behind closed doors.
An enraged Haciosmanoglu had ordered referee Cagatay Sahan and his assistants to be detained after Trabzonspor were denied a penalty in the dying minutes of their Turkish league match with Gaziantepspor that ended in a 2-2 draw.
Haciosmanoglu later explained his reasons for detaining the officials in a statement on the club Web site, saying the measures were taken to protect them from the angry crowd.
Trabzonspor supporters had gathered outside the stadium and the officials were locked in until the early hours of Thursday, when there was a personal intervention from Erdogan, for whom Haciosmanoglu said he had a “bond of love and respect.”
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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