Aston Villa face punishment from UEFA after falling foul of the organisation’s regulations on Wednesday evening.
Unai Emery’s side face Legia Warsaw for their first Europa Conference League group stage fixture on Thursday night, but the head coach arrived late for his pre-match press conference at Stadion Wojska Polskiego. The conference was due to get under way at 8pm local time (7pm UK time).
Article 72.04 of UEFA’s Regulations of the Europa Conference League states: “Press conferences must start between 1200 and 2000 local time. Exceptions to these timings must be agreed in advance with UEFA.”
Manchester United and Newcastle United also broke the same rule this week, as Eddie Howe and Erik ten Hag showed up late to their respective media briefings.
A first offence is likely to be met with a warning rather than more stringent punishment.
Villa informed UEFA that they might miss the deadline before their flight from Birmingham to Warsaw was delayed for just under an hour after Emery’s squad trained at Bodymoor Heath in the morning. Jacob Ramsey travelled to Poland with his teammates after recovering from a broken metatarsal in the summer.
Alex Moreno has also made a full recovery from injury and could feature for the first time since May on Thursday night. Villa come into the match on the back of a dramatic late comeback against Crystal Palace, winning 3-1 with three late goals from Jhon Duran, Douglas Luiz and Leon Bailey.