The story appears on

Page A13

September 23, 2009

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

Home » Sports » Soccer

Bellamy escapes City punishment

MANCHESTER City's Craig Bellamy has escaped punishment from his club for pushing a fan in the face after he had invaded the field on Sunday, although the police and Football Association are still deciding whether to take action.

The United fan ran onto the field at Old Trafford and Bellamy was seen to push him in the face. The police and FA have said they will investigate the incident but City manager Mark Hughes said yesterday that Bellamy, who faces the possibility of police prosecution and a three-game ban by the FA if found guilty, was acting in self defense.

"We're still waiting for notification as to whether there will be anything from the FA in regard to that," Hughes said.

"He obviously wanted the guy to get off as quickly as possible and told him so. The guy's made an aggressive movement towards him and Craig has brought up a defensive hand and pushed the guy away. You can never be quite sure what is going to happen in those situations."

The incident happened at the end of a stormy but thrilling local derby between the two rivals in which Bellamy had scored twice for City in a 3-4 defeat.

Hughes' team came back three times after falling behind but eventually succumbed to a winner by Michael Owen in the sixth minute of injury time with the City manager furious at the amount of time added on by the referee.

Elsewhere, Cameroon striker Samuel Eto'o is demanding about 3 million euros (US$4.4 million) from former club Barcelona as part of the deal under he which was transferred Inter Milan.

Lawyers for both the club and player are to meet in court in the coming weeks to try to reach a settlement but club officials said yesterday that an agreement was unlikely and the case is expected to go to court.

The 28-year-old Eto'o filed the claim against the European champion demanding payment of 15 percent of his transfer deal, or about 3 million euros.

Barcelona argues that this transfer stipulation applies only to deals between Spanish clubs.





 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend