Aston Villa warned of ‘more severe action’ after Villa Park scenes – Exclusive
Aston Villa put up an almighty fight en route to being eliminated from the Champions League by Paris Saint-Germain.
Goals from Youri Tielemans, John McGinn and Ezri Konsa reduced a 5-1 aggregate deficit to 5-4 with half an hour of the second leg to play at Villa Park.
However, it was not to be as a couple of big chances went begging for Villa and they crashed out by the odd goal in nine.
Villa more than played their part in a Champions League thriller for the ages, but scenes after the match could unfortunately cost the Premier League club.
Keith Hackett moots possible UEFA action against Aston Villa
Referee Jose Maria Sanchez Martinez was public enemy number one among the Aston Villa hoards inside Villa Park.
The official was booed as he made his way towards the tunnel area at full-time, but one supporter took it too far by launching a bottle at the Spaniard.
The bottle narrowly missed one of Martinez’s assistants, who could be seen looking pretty shocked in the direction of the Trinity Road Stand.
| Aston Villa v PSG | Goals | Shots | xG | Possession |
| Aston Villa | 3 | 17 | 2.26 | 34% |
| PSG | 2 | 14 | 1.70 | 66% |
That incident will be covered in UEFA’s match delegate’s report and will likely lead to a fine for Villa, although a more severe punishment cannot be ruled out at this stage.
Providing some insight exclusively to Villa News, former FIFA official Keith Hackett said: “This is not a Premier League game – it is UEFA and they often take more severe action on these matters.
“The fact that Villa are out of the competition may help their case and result in just a fine.
“A lot depends on Aston Villa’s defence submissions, outlining what action they took, if any, on the night, and if they have been able to find the culprit responsible and issued them with a stadium ban.“
Villa must act swiftly to ban supporter responsible
As Hackett says, whether or not Villa face more severe action than merely a fine is now effectively down to how the Villans act – or have already acted.
If they can show the fan responsible for throwing the bottle has already been dealt with, that should suffice.
UEFA do not take kindly to incidents of this manner – and nor should they – but hopefully this will be dealt with swiftly enough.