KV Mechelen then gets the three points from the stopped match against Charleroi. The Belgian Court of Arbitration for Sport (BAS) decided this on Tuesday. The Disciplinary Council for Professional Football (DRP) initially ruled that the game had to be played completely again behind closed doors, but Malinwa is still right on appeal.
Vincent Van Genechten
Referee Jan Boterberg had to pause the match twice at the Stade du Pays on November 12, 2022, because supporters of Charleroi had thrown tennis balls and fireworks onto the field. In a third incident, with ‘only’ one piece of fireworks, halfway through the second half and with a 1-0 score for Charleroi, the ref decided to stop the match definitively.
The BAS had to judge whether the stopped game had to be replayed or whether it was a 0-5 win for KV Mechelen. It was supporters of Charleroi who bombarded the field with fireworks and were thus responsible for stopping the match.
Marco Ilaimaharitra and Rob Schoofs during the stopped Charleroi-KV Mechelen of November 12, 2022. — © BELGIUM
But the DRP found a procedural error and decided to replay the game behind closed doors. The federal public prosecutor’s office, KV Mechelen, Westerlo, Anderlecht and Cercle Brugge then moved to the BAS.
With success: Malinwa wins with a forfeit score and gets the three points. As a result, KV Mechelen remains in thirteenth place, with 36 points. Charleroi is eighth with 47 points. “The club is happy that the violence in and around our stadiums has been condemned with this decision,” said Malinwa with relief.
Charleroi is considering possible next steps
Sporting Charleroi announced in a press release on Tuesday that it has taken note of the decision of the BAS and is considering possible steps in the future.
Charleroi discusses the content of the decision in the press release. “The BAS looked at the situation in the stadium between the 14th and 67th minutes (between the second stoppage and the new flare that led to the abandonment of the match) and concluded that the atmosphere had not improved, even deteriorated. We think that is incorrect.” It is because of this finding that the Court of Arbitration decided that the suspension of the match was justified.
In addition, Charleroi refers to a file regarding a stopped match at Genk in 2019. The police were not consulted before a match was stopped, writes Charleroi, which was then seen as non-regulatory. The question is, of course, whether other circumstances in the file correspond to this file.
