A Chilean football team wins promotion after officials search for opponents in toilets. Photo/NZPA (file pic)
The original scenario was silly enough.
Chilean football sides Deportes Melipilla and Deportes Vallenar were ordered to replay a penalty shoot out at an empty neutral venue. There was plenty at stake, the winner gaining promotion to Primera B, the second tier league in Chile.
The outcome was even more bizarre.
Journalists and local police turned up to the vacant arena for the shoot out. So did the Melipilla team.
But Vallenar — who appeared to have won the match days earlier after a penalty shootout — failed to show up with a spokesman claiming the club's players were out of contract because the season had officially finished.
In a weird token gesture, officials reportedly searched the stadium for the team, including in the toilets, despite already knowing they had not turned up.
Melipilla were duly awarded the game, meaning Vallenar's joy had turned to despair.
Just days earlier Vallenar and their fans had celebrated wildly at their home stadium. But after the game, Melipilla protested that one of the successful Vallenar penalties by Juan Silva was invalid.
Silva had illegally baulked during his run up before slamming the ball into the net. The referee ordered him to re-take it, but the Chilean Football Association agreed with Melipilla that Silva's first attempt should have been chalked up as a miss, the BBC reported.
One of the Vallenar players Leonel Mena — who was 1000km away from the empty stadium — told Chilean TV that his club was deeply hurt by events.
"It's a lack of respect, what they're doing," he said, after watching the non-shootout on TV.
"It's hurt us deeply — morally and psychologically. A whole town had celebrated, cried with joy. Now it's being stolen away."They had the chance to beat us on the pitch but couldn't. We are really upset. I was about to return to the Primera B. Now I don't know what I'll do."
Melipilla's goalkeeper Jaime Bravo had no sympathy, after celebrating with team mates in a empty stadium with no opponents in sight.
"You have to follow the laws of the game...they say you can't stutter your run-up and he (Silva) did," he said.
Vallenar are reported to be pursuing legal options.
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