Ajax won’t seek £10m compensation despite Uefa admitting Chelsea were given unfair advantage in Champions League win
AJAX will not seek £10million in compensation despite Uefa admitting Chelsea were given an "unfair advantage" in their Champions League clash.
Italian referee Gianluca Rocchi was found to be in the wrong after sending off Daley Blind and Joel Veltman in the 4-4 thriller at Stamford Bridge in November.
Dutch paper De Telegraaf carried a story saying European football's governing body admitted Rocchi made an error that cost Ajax the match and any chance of progressing further in the competition.
But now club CEO and Manchester United legend Edwin van der Sar has revealed Ajax have no plans to take further legal action.
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He is reported to have said: "Taking legal action with Uefa would be useless and hopeless."
The Blues were 4-2 down after 68 minutes when Blind and Veltman were sent off in the space of two minutes during the group stage stand off.
Chelsea ended up drawing the game against Ajax’s nine men.
And the result put Frank Lampard’s men in pole position to qualify from the group as Ajax eventually dropped into the Europa League.
The Dutch champions maintain that Rocchi made the wrong call to send off both Blind and Veltman in the same phase of play.
A winter meeting between refs in Spain apparently concluded that the whistle should have gone after a heavy tackle by Blind.
But the ref allowed play to continue, resulting in Chelsea getting a penalty moments later.
Veltman, who received a yellow for handling the ball in his own box, then talked himself into a red while Blind received a second yellow for the earlier challenge.
It’s reckoned VAR should have intervened in Veltman’s red card and reversed the decision, while also calling back the penalty to Blind’s original foul further up the field.
Things could have ended even worse for Ajax when Chelsea were controversially disallowed a winner due to an apparent handball by Tammy Abraham.