Clemente Villaverde: “The Club will fight for its innocence until the end”
Atlético de Madrid is not in agreement with the ruling of the Appeal and will request the precautionary suspension of the closure from the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Clemente Villaverde and Juan de Dios Crespo Pérez stated this clearly before the media who were present at the UEFA headquarters. “Atlético de Madrid is going to fight for its innocence until the end. We believe that we’re innocent for the way in which the process has been carried out. More valued was given to some evidence than other. There were contradictions and we can’t allow ourselves to be content,” underscored Clemente Villaverde.
The Atlético Director continued to comment on the ruling made by the UEFA Appeal Body and stated that “there has been a reduction with respect to the initial ban, but we don’t agree with the manner in which the proceedings were conducted. For this reason we’re going to fight on to the next stage, the CAS.”
Little by little Clemente Villaverde began to reveal what happened during the more than eight-hour meeting and said that “both the UEFA Security Delegate and the local director for UEFA, as well as those who attended the proceedings, have supported the version presented by Atlético de Madrid.”
The Atlético de Madird representative wanted to leave it clear that “they haven’t given us the written grounds for the decision yet; we’ll have them in the forthcoming days. Right now we only have a summary available to us. It seems like there has been a change in evaluation by the Committee and that they have given more importance to the racist chants.”
“We’re going to analyse everything and we’ll obviously have to work as a consequence, but the fact that they’ve given a decision without looking at the merits of the case brings attention to it, as well as the fact that they don’t maintain the precautionary suspension and don’t give the grounds of that decision, as it’s more difficult to defend yourself before the next court,” explained Villaverde.
Clemente Villaverde did not assess the statements made by René Poulet, President of the Handicap Club OM Handicapped Association, nor those of French journalist Thierry Trésor. “They’re statements from one party. All of the means of evidence that were filed by us were made clear during the proceedings. Atlético de Madrid has supported what we’ve been defending at all times, that is, the innocence of the Club with respect to all of the events of which we were accused. We hope that when we turn to the CAS, they will consider the merits and the truth of the case. We’re not going to assess external pressures; we’re only focused on the legal defense of the Club,” he asserted.
Additionally, Juan de Dios Crespo Pérez wanted to explain that “on the one hand, we’re pleased with the reduction of the ban to one match and that it will be played at the Vicente Calderón. Furthermore, the second match is pending a two-year period. But we want a bit more… We’re convinced that we have enough evidence to prove the innocence of the organization. They gave more value to the opponent’s evidence than to ours. We’re not speaking about favoritism, but of different valuation of the evidence.”
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