Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany raged against Uefa’s decision to ban his side’s fans from their Champions League group game against CSKA Moscow.
CSKA were ordered to play the game against City, which ended 2-2 after the Russians equalised late on, behind closed doors after their fans had displayed far-right banners against AS Roma last month and racist behaviour last season.
However, there were 650 people in the stadium, many of whom chanted for CSKA Moscow throughout the game.
“Why the hell do we not have any fans here? What have our fans done wrong? There’s no fairness in it,” said Vincent Kompany.
“You say no fans, all of a sudden you turn up and the team who has no fans is Man City. So who’s getting punished? Who’s being done for racism, Man City or Moscow?”
City sacrificed a two-goal first-half lead, conceding a late penalty to leave their hopes of qualification for the next stage of the Champions League hanging by a thread.
But manager Manuel Pellegrini was adamant that his side could still make it through their difficult group.
“We have nine points left to play for,” he told reporters. “After we’ve played for those nine points we’ll see how many we have.
“Of course we can still qualify.”
City were minutes away from a crucial three points, but an alleged foul by Aleksandar Kolarov on Seydou Doumbia gave CSKA a penalty to equalise.
However, the City boss refused to blame the referee, instead highlighting his side’s poor second-half performance.
“Football is 95 minutes it’s not just the first half. We played very well in the first half, we scored two goals and had many more clear chances to score,” the 61-year-old said.
“In the second half we didn’t have the pace and we didn’t move the ball like we did in the first half.”
Main image courtesy of Manchester City FC via YouTube, with thanks.
