Two Fenerbahce players in the file, and the club with them
Sixty thousand people. That is the number Mattheo Guendouzi reached for when asked to explain himself at Groupama Stadium on 26 August, and it is the only defence he has offered so far. UEFA is not interested in the acoustics. Fenerbahce confirmed in a Thursday morning statement that European football’s governing body has opened disciplinary proceedings against Guendouzi, Mason Greenwood and the club itself.
The Istanbul side are not backing down. “Our club will present the necessary arguments before UEFA’s competent bodies in order to protect the rights and interests of our players and of Fenerbahce during this procedure,” the statement read. No hearing date has been made public.
The football was settled a week ago. Lyon and Fenerbahce drew 1-1 in Istanbul, then the Turkish club took the return leg 2-1 and the league phase place with it. Lyon dropped into the Europa League.
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Guendouzi: “it works both ways”
He was booed through the warm-up. He gave it back with interest.
After the final whistle he was heard twice shouting “Allez l’OM” and threw in a hand sign associated with Marseille rapper Jul. Scuffles broke out on the pitch and carried on down the tunnel. At his press conference the midfielder offered nothing resembling regret. “When you’ve got 60,000 people insulting your family, your mother, your children, even before the match, and nobody on the officiating side tells the stadium to shut up…” He left the sentence hanging, then finished the thought another way. “If you want to wind people up, then it works both ways.”
Greenwood’s name sits in the same paperwork
Greenwood arrived from Marseille this summer. He also aimed “Allez l’OM” at the Lyon end. Two former OM players taunting a Lyon crowd in a knockout tie was never going to pass quietly, and UEFA has bundled both cases together.
What comes next matters more than the theatre did. A European suspension would strip Fenerbahce of two regular starters exactly as the league phase opens. The club spent the whole summer building for this return after several years away from the competition. Whether the squad they assembled is the one that actually starts in it is now somebody else’s decision.
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