National team striker Nicklas Bendtner has appealed against UEFA’s decision to hand him a €100,000 fine and ban him from playing in Denmark’s first 2014 World Cup qualifier in September.
The sanction comes after Bendtner lowered his shorts after scoring in Denmark's Euro 2012 match against Portugal on Wednesday to reveal the top of his underpants, which were embalzoned wiht the name of an Irish betting firm.
Although the Danish fans were ecstatic about the equaliser, in the UEFA hallways back in Switzerland, they were livid. And it didn’t take long for European football's bigwigs to hand down the sentence, giving the Dane the highest possible fine for the violation of its rules.
The Danish FA, which described the punishment as "extreme" and “unprecedented”, urged Bendtner to appeal the UEFA verdict. And Bendtner has complied.
“As you probably already realise, I have decided to appeal against the decision and I have no further comments,” Bendtner told Ekstra Bladet newspaper.
The firm Bendtner is accused of advertising for has offered to pay his fine – just under two week’s wages – but denied that it paid him for the media stunt. Regardless, Danish football analyst Fernando Olsen said UEFA was right to hand out severe punishments for such actions.
“We can’t have someone doing this kind of ambush advertising and avoid paying what it usually costs to advertise during the Euros,” Olsen told TV2 News. “This advertisement has a value of astronomical proportions.”
