Those responsible at Austria have already been informed on the quiet, now it’s official. The Criminal and Certification Committee (STRUBA) rejected the application to replay the championship game against SV Grödig. Austria lodges a protest.
Austria complied with STRUBA’s summons and appeared at the SFV office with President Claus Salzmann, secretary Christian Hochhauser, advisory board member Markus Eichbauer, trainer Christian Schaider and steward-chairwoman Irene Niedermoser-Knoll.
Christian Hochhauser summarizes: “After an intensive discussion with Claus and I, the STRUBA rejected our application for a new event without giving any reason. I believe that the lack of verbal justification was due to the fact that I had previously been accused of legal sophistry and that I put words in their mouths. I have made it clear that I am sitting here to represent the interests of Austria and that my job is to present legal arguments.”
In principle, it was not entirely clear to him which arguments the application had been rejected with. “Initially we were granted that the second assistant was genuinely biased but there is no provision that would justify the re-staging. Then he was not entirely biased, but would have had to make demonstrably partisan wrong decisions in order to order a new event, which, however, was not the case in the STRUBA’s opinion. But there is actually no regulation for this either, so in my opinion there is an unplanned gap that should be closed by analogy. Otherwise, a rescheduling would not even be permitted in the case of betting fraud, because there is no express regulation for this either. The argument of a committee member that in the case of the betting fraudster Robert Hoyzer no game had been played anyway, but then not everyone wanted to agree, at least that was my impression.
As already announced, Austria will go through the courts and lodge a protest against the decision. If this is also rejected, our secretary believes that there are not many options left. “Basically, the regulations provide for the possibility of appealing to the ÖFB’s appeal board, but this is only permissible in special, exhaustively listed exceptional cases, of which to be honest there are none here, as far as I can see at the moment.”
In addition, Austria was also fined 2,000 euros for pyrotechnic offenses in Bischofshofen, 300 euros for using pyrotechnics against Grödig and 500 euros for throwing a cup. These decisions are also not yet legally binding, Austria asked for time to think about it.
