West Ham United can confirm that we received an email late on Monday afternoon informing us that we are subject to sanctions from UEFA in relation to our Europa League Group H fixture against KRC Genk on Thursday 4 November.
The Club has been fined 34,500 Euros and also informed that our supporters are unable to travel for our next Europa League away fixture.
The Club are urgently seeking clarification from UEFA, particularly given the extremely short notice of the sanction, which will impact our supporters who have already bought tickets and made arrangements to travel to Austria our match at Rapid Vienna in just over a week.
We are surprised to receive these sanctions and disappointed for the fans who have behaved impeccably and supported the team throughout and will now be unable to travel to the next away Europa League fixture.
The Club has requested the full written reasons from UEFA regarding these sanctions and have asked them to expedite our request given that further delay could impact supporters once again.
The Club fully appreciates that supporters will have booked return travel and accommodation in Austria and are stressing this in our dialogue with UEFA. We will update supporters as soon as we are able to with further information.
Finally, we would like to assure those supporters who have already purchased one of the 1,700 tickets that sold out our allocation for this game that they will be automatically refunded by the Club should UEFA rule the sanctions stand and that they relate to next week’s match in Austria.