Real Madrid announced this Friday (8) fines worth €500,000 (R$2.9 million) to players Federico Valverde and Aurélien Tchouaméni, after the disagreement that ended with the Uruguayan in hospital with a traumatic brain injury, on the eve of the visit to Barcelona on Sunday.
“Real Madrid has decided to impose an economic sanction of €500,000 on each player,” the Real Madrid club said in a statement.
The two players expressed regret and apologized to each other in their testimony this Friday before the person responsible for conducting the disciplinary process opened against them, as explained by the entity in its statement.
“In the same way, they conveyed their apologies to the club, their teammates, the coaching staff and the fans, and both made themselves available to Real Madrid to accept the sanction that the club deemed appropriate,” he added.
Real Madrid closed the case with a strong economic sanction, but without sporting punishment.
Tchouaméni and Valverde had a disagreement on Thursday, which ended with the Uruguayan spending a brief time in a hospital to be treated.
Presented by the media as a fight, Valverde stated in a message on Instagram that it was just an argument without actually coming to blows.
During the argument, “I accidentally hit a table, making a small cut on my forehead”, explained Valverde.
The Uruguayan is sidelined by “a traumatic brain injury” for which he will have to rest for around two weeks, which is why he will miss Sunday’s derby at the Camp Nou, in which Barcelona could become champions of the Spanish Championship.
Frustration
“I’m truly sorry because this situation hurts me, and the moment we are going through hurts me,” the Uruguayan midfielder had stated in his statement on Thursday.
Eliminated from the Copa del Rey by Albacete, from the second division, and from the Champions League by Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals, Real Madrid only have a slim chance of winning the Spanish Championship.
Second in the championship standings, eleven points behind Barcelona with four rounds to go and twelve points to play, only a victory for the Merengues can maintain these slim hopes for Álvaro Arbeloa’s team.
Although a complete collapse of Barcelona by the end of the season is also necessary for the Catalan team not to win the title again.
Real Madrid is heading towards a second consecutive year without titles, which seems to have heightened tension and frustration within the Whites.
“We wasted another year, and I wasn’t here to post on social media when the only thing I needed to show was my face on the pitch, and I feel like I did that,” Valverde said in his statement.
“That’s why it hurts and saddens me even more to go through this situation, which prevents me from playing in the next match due to medical decisions”, he concluded.
The merengue team trained this Friday aiming for the clash without Valverde, but with Tchouaméni, who trained normally.
