Barcelona lash out at ´totally reprehensible´ RFEF comments

Barcelona have hit out at the Royal Spanish Football Federation’s (RFEF) conduct in dealing with the bottle-throwing incident that marred the club’s LaLiga clash with Valencia on Saturday.

The RFEF fined Valencia €1,500 after Barca forward Neymar was struck by a missile thrown from the stands at the Mestalla, but the visiting players were also criticised by the Competition Committee for their “reproachable behaviour”.

And the Catalan giants have reacted angrily to the suggestion of wrongdoing on their own players’ part, stressing they were “victims of clearly condemnable behaviour”.

A club statement reads: “FC Barcelona considers the comments made by the Royal Spanish Football Federation’s (RFEF) Competition Committee totally reprehensible and excessive when explaining their resolution for the events which occurred last Saturday at Mestalla during the league match between Valencia CF and FC Barcelona.

“When they describe their version of the facts and when they conclude that ‘the aforementioned less then exemplary behaviour of some of FC Barcelona’s players discredits and ridicules only themselves’, the Committee makes guilty the victims of clearly condemnable behaviour expressed in multiple forms before, during and after the game: offensive language, insults towards the referee by people belonging to Valencia CF, the throwing of objects.

“The Committee fails to mention a hostile climate, and in some cases violent, which led to aggression towards FC Barcelona players, which can only be reacted to by expressing indignation at what they have had to put up with.

“FC Barcelona assumes that after this resolution the Committee will occupy themselves with analysing and judging the correctness of the way each team celebrate each and every one of their goals.

“The Committee should have confined itself to analysing the facts and applying the existing rules, avoiding any kind of assessment, which as well as being unfair, is incompatible with the principles that should govern the actions of this organisation.

“FC Barcelona requires all parties involved to show the responsibility and impartiality necessary to ensure fair play and the good atmosphere which should prevail in a league which wants to be the best in the world.”