In an unbelievable decision, Spain’s football’s disciplinary committee on Wednesday only suspended Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo for two-matches instead of three following his red card in Real Madrid’s 2-1 victory over Cordoba on Saturday.
Ronaldo was sent off for kicking Cordoba’s Edimar Fraga, while his punch at another Cordoba earlier in the match went unpunished.
As a result, Ronaldo will miss the home games against Real Sociedad and Sevilla, but more importantly, he will be available for the Madrid derby against Atletico.
After the game Ronaldo used Twitter to apologise to Crespo saying:
“I apologise to everyone and especially to Edimar for my thoughtless act”,
Unbelievably, that was enough to cut his suspension by a third according to La Liga president Javier Tebas who told news agency EFE that Ronaldo’s apology was something which should be appreciated.
“It’s not up to me [the punishment], that’s for the Federation’s Competition Committee,” Tebas said. “I’d rather focus on the apology from Cristiano afterwards. Unsportsmanlike behaviour isn’t good for La Liga, Cristiano was unsporting but I’ll stick with the fact he wasn’t but apologised. I like to look for the positive and I appreciated his apology and that’s something we value.”
I bet that the leniency of the Spanish disciplinary committee is something that Atletico Madrid boss Diego Simeone brings up once or twice in the build up to game that will go a long way towards deciding who will win the title this season.