Soccer-Director says Fiorentina were ambushed

Fiorentina director Nello Governato said on Wednesday that he felt his club had been "ambushed" by the violent incidents which led to the abandonment of the Italian club's Tuesday UEFA Cup tie with Swiss side Grasshoppers.
The second leg tie, played at the neutral venue of Salerno, was called off at halftime after linesman, Philippe Lament, was injured by a firecracker thrown on the pitch. Fiorentina had been leading 2-1 on the night, 4-1 on aggregate.
UEFA have postponed a decision on the future of the tie until a Monday November 9th meeting.

         UEFA precedents suggest that Fiorentina risk, at worst, elimination from the competition with a 3-0 technical victory awarded to Grasshoppers or, at best, being allowed to replay the tie behind closed doors.
The match was being played in Salerno because Fiorentina are still serving a two match ban on their own ground in Florence after violent incidents at a Cup Winners' Cup semifinal with Barcelona in April 1997.

         Fiorentina officials suspect Tuesday's incident may have been provoked by rival Salernitana fans, keen to exact revenge after violent fan scuffles following Fiorentina's 4-0 Serie A home win against Salernitana on October 25th. "We're absolutely dumbfounded by what happened. The city of Salerno and the club had welcomed us with open arms," Governato told Italian radio. "We feel we're the victims of an ambush, of a violent  attack...the people who threw this thing were just 20 people, or so the police say, a violent minority of delinquents".

         Last week Salerno police warned that the UEFA tie was a high risk match and called for it to be played at another venue, perhaps Bari where Fiorentina played their first round UEFA tie with Hadjuk Split.
But the game went ahead in Salerno partly because it was too late to change venue and partly because Fiorentina had decided to donate the gate takings to victims of the Sarno mudslides of last May.

        The Mayor of Salerno De Luca on Wednesday issued a public apology to the injured UEFA official as well as to Fiorentina. Mayor De Luca added that if the Italian Football Federation now opted to change the venue of an international friendly against Spain, scheduled for November 18th in Salerno, then he would make no effort to change that decision.