FIFA claim Nikolai Topor-Stanley tried to deceive the referee…
FIFA have rejected an appeal by the Western Sydney Wanderers against Nikolai Topor-Stanley’s red card in the Club World Cup, saying that the defender had attempted to deceive the referee.
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Topor-Stanley was sent off in Sunday’s 3-1 loss to Cruz Azul at the Club World Cup, despite one of his bookings being a case of mistaken identity.
The Wanderers skipper was clearly far behind play when Matthew Spiranovic and Seyi Adeleke fouled Hugo Pavone, only for Ivorian referee Nouemandiez Doue to dish out a yellow card to Topor-Stanley.
The Australian side were hopeful of getting Topor-Stanley off the ban, however their appeal was thrown out by FIFA.
“FIFA won’t change their decision – we appealed, after seeing the video, knowing it wasn’t him but there’s nothing from our point of view we can do now,” Wanderers coach Tony Popovic told the Daily Telegraph.
“Nikolai can’t play, which is unfortunate. The actual challenge he makes [to earn a second yellow card and hence be dismissed], close to halfway, he makes knowing he can get a yellow if he mistimes it, which in those conditions can happen.
“He wasn’t concerned about that, because he didn’t think he had a yellow already.”
The decision means Topor-Stanley is ruled out of the fifth-place playoff against Algerian side ES Serif on Wednesday (GMT).