Football: Real punished for trouble at European Cup tie

REAL MADRID have been ordered to play their next two home European matches 300 kilometres from their Santiago Bernabeu stadium and fined a total of 1.3million Swiss francs (pounds 515,000) by Uefa's Disciplinary Committee.

Yesterday's ruling followed trouble at the first leg of Real Madrid's European Cup semi-final against Borussia Dortmund last Wednesday when the goalposts were broken and, as a result, the kick-off was delayed by 75 minutes.

However, the result of the match stands at 2-0 to Real before the return leg in Germany on 16 April after Borussia withdrew an official protest. The Germans had considered complaining about the disruption to their pre- match preparations caused by the delay. They thought their players had been hampered by having psyched themselves up for the start, only to have to gather their thoughts again later.

The Uefa fine comprised SFr300,000 for crowd trouble that caused the goal to be broken and SFr1m taken from gate receipts by Uefa who estimated the crowd of 85,000 exceeded the allowable capacity by 15,000 fans.