Espanyol’s Coach Mauricio Pochettino and assistant Coach Toni Jimenez have both been handed two-game bans for being sent off last week.
The duo were dismissed from the technical area during their side’s weekend draw at Cornella El-Prat with Athletic Bilbao.
The referee’s notes recorded Pochettino as ‘asking for explanations, shouting…trying unsuccessfully to enter the referee’s changing room’, which the tactician took exception to.
The club appealed his potential ban based on the argument that the match record did not accurately reflect what happened in the incident, but the Spanish Football Federation have decided to hit him with the same punishment as Jimenez, whose dismissal and potential ban was not appealed by the club.
Both men will now have to sit in the stands for Espanyol’s next two matches, which are Week 5’s trip to Real Betis and Week 6’s home match with Atletico Madrid.
Meanwhile, the club’s striker Samuele Longo, Malaga’s Sergio Sanchez, Osasuna’s Joseba Llorente and Mallorca’s Jose Nunes have all been handed one-match suspensions for their respective dismissals at the weekend.
Deportivo’s physio has also been suspended for a game for ‘throwing a water bottle on the field of play during Sunday’s game with Granada in stoppages, having previously been warned, and ignoring instructions’.
