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Europa League: Celtic charged by UEFA over flare incident in Zagreb

The UEFA Europa League trophy
Image: The UEFA Europa League trophy

UEFA has opened disciplinary proceedings against Celtic following a crowd disturbance at their Europa League Group D match away to Dinamo Zagreb last Thursday.

Celtic lost the game 4-3 but had already secured their place in the knockout stages of the competition after guaranteeing second spot in Group D.

The Scottish champions have been charged with a breach of Article 16 (2) (h) of the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations after a flare was set off in the away end of the ground in Croatia.

UEFA’s Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body will consider the matter on February 19, the same day the Hoops face Inter Milan in the first leg of their round-of-32 clash.

Manager Ronny Deila is confident the opening of disciplinary proceedings against the club will not lead to a ban on supporters traveling to the San Siro on February 26.

'Fantastic'

"We are not feeling good about this, if something wrong has happened. As I have said before it is a small minority of our fans who are doing this," he said.

"But overall, my impression is that these are fantastic fans so hopefully it's nothing big.

"It will be a big setback for us (if fans are banned from Milan) so hopefully we will get as many Celtic fans as possible to the game in Italy because that is important for us.

"But if they continue to do that we will get fines which is not good for the club or our reputation. So we need to make this stop so we can concentrate on football.

"Ninetynine percent of things happening around the Celtic fans is incredible and we have to stop this one percent."

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