ROME (AFP) - AS Roma have decided to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the Italian club said, following FIFA's imposing of a one-year transfer ban after their controversial signing of Auxerre's Philippe Mexes. Roma have been banned by football's world governing body from recruiting players for one-year for encouraging the player to break his contract. This unprecedented punishment has been a great blow to 2001 Italian champions Roma, who only finished eighth last season, though they reached the final of the Italian Cup before losing to AC Milan
Pietro Marazzo, the president of the Latium region around Rome, urged for a rethink by FIFA. "This punishment is unprecedented," Marazzo said. "Roma is not just a football club, but adds to the heritage of the capital city and the whole region. "This punishment could bring to its knees a club which represents our whole region at European and world level." Roma's recent purchases of Shabani Nonda from Monaco and of Sammy Kuffour from Bayern Munich, which have not yet been ratified by FIFA, are both in doubt. The controversy began in June last year when Mexes decided to leave Auxerre for Roma on a four-year contract without the consent of officials at the French first division club. The player's representatives claimed he had a right to leave because of new FIFA rules but an outraged Auxerre said he was in serious breach of his contract. AS Roma and Mexes are already in the process of appealing to CAS after FIFA ordered the club to pay eight million euros to Auxerre for the transfer of the player. During negotiations over the sale of the player, AS Roma offered 4.5 million euros (5.4 million dollars) but Auxerre, who believed Mexes had breached the terms of his contract, wanted 18 million euros. FIFA also handed Mexes a six-week suspension last September after he joined Roma despite still being under contract to Auxerre. The mayor of Rome Walter Veltroni focused on the financial cost of the ban. "The decision imposed on Roma, a club which has been floated on the stock exchange, seems to me an act of rare and uncommon harshness which could have enormous economic consequences." Rome's top citizen added he hoped Roma would not be left on their own and that the Italian football federation would intervene to try and soften the effects of the punishment. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] HAPUS BAGIAN EMAIL YG TIDAK PERLU SEBELUM ME-REPLY. ========================================================== Milis Tabloid BOLA Untuk KELUAR DARI MILIS INI. Kirim Mail kosong (tanpa subject) ke alamat [EMAIL PROTECTED] ========================================================== Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bolaml/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
