Hellas Verona’s partial stadium ban for racist chants against Mario Balotelli has been reduced on appeal again to only a small sector with a suspended sentence.
The incident occurred during Brescia’s 2-1 defeat at the Stadio Bentegodi on November 3.
Balotelli very clearly heard the section that the racist chants were emanating from, as he kicked the ball directly at the group.
Hellas Verona’s partial stadium ban for racist chants against Mario Balotelli has been reduced on appeal again to only a small sector with a suspended sentence.
The incident occurred during Brescia’s 2-1 defeat at the Stadio Bentegodi on November 3.
Balotelli very clearly heard the section that the racist chants were emanating from, as he kicked the ball directly at the group.
At first, the FIGC’s disciplinary commission ordered Verona play with the Poltrone Est sector of its Curva section of the stands closed.
This is a sector containing 3,590 seats and those with season tickets for that section could simply have purchased individual tickets for the game to sit elsewhere.
However, that too was suspended pending another appeal and supplementary investigation.
Today, it was completed, and the ban reduced to only Sector 8 of the Poltrone Est area of the stands.
Even that has been made a suspended sentence for a year, so will not be enacted unless there are further incidents of racism during that period.
Effectively, there is no ban or punishment for the Verona ultras responsible.