Dumped out of Copa Del Rey: Benitez and Cheryshev at half time of the ill-fated match

Just as widely anticipated Real Madrid have been thrown out of the Spanish Cup after fielding an ineligible player in their tie against third-tier side Cadiz on Wednesday, the Spanish Football Federation confirmed on Friday.

Madrid began the game with Denis Cheryshev, who scored the opening goal in the 3-1 win, in their starting line-up even though the Russian should have been suspended after he received three yellow cards in the competition for Villarreal last season.

Coach Rafa Benitez had claimed he did not know that Cheryshev was ineligible, blaming Villarreal for not passing the information to him. Cheryshev on his own part also claimed he was not aware he was ineligible.

Club president, Florentino Perez,  anticipating the hammer also argued, quoting several rules why Madrid should not be punished.

Pérez spoke to the media at the Santiago Bernabéu: “In relation to Real Madrid’s fielding of the player Denis Cheryshev in the Copa del Rey match against Cádiz yesterday, and after analysing the events in today’s meeting of the Board of Directors, we wish to state that the one-match ban for accumulating three yellow cards in the Copa del Rey tournament last season, when the player was representing Villarreal, should in our view not take effect, because nobody notified the player of the ban, as is clearly stipulated in article 41 section two of the Spanish Football Federation’s Disciplinary Code, which states: … punitive resolutions will not take effect until the parties concerned have been personally notified“.

“It’s an essential, basic principle of all punitive law that that the punishment does not take effect, and it is as if it did not exist, until the party receiving the punishment is notified”.

“As the player Cheryshev states, nobody notified him of the ban, and for that reason it should not take effect. Real Madrid were not aware of its existence, nobody notified the club of its existence, neither the player nor Villarreal nor the RFEF. The necessity for personal notification was explicitly acknowledged by the Administrative Court for Sport in its recent resolution of 30 January 2015”.

“Even if we accepted that the ban should take effect, which we deny, it must be considered to be automatically wiped out in accordance with the provisions of the final subsection of article 112, paragraph two, section one, which says, and I quote: … in the Campeonato de España / Copa de S. M. El Rey, at the end of the third knockout round, all participants’ existing cycles of cautions will be automatically annulled, and a new cycle shall commence for all participants in the round of 32“.