Florentino Perez says Real Madrid will oppose any sanction for fielding Denis Cheryshev

As expected, Real Madrid will do everything in its power to avoid being kicked out of the Copa del Rey.

Speaking one day after Real Madrid controversially fielded Denis Cheryshev in its Copa del Rey Round of 32 fixture at Cadiz, Florentino Perez, president of Los Blancos, insisted that the Russian attacking midfielder had every right to be on the pitch and declared that his club will oppose any sanction that the Real Federacion Espanola de Futbol (RFEF) assigns.

In the second leg of the semifinals of the 2014-15 Copa del Rey, Cheryshev, then featuring at Villarreal, picked up his third yellow card of the competition. The accumulation of three yellow cards means a player must serve a one-match suspension, and Real Madrid's match at Cadiz on Wednesday marked the first game for which Cheryshev was eligible to serve his suspension.

Cheryshev was replaced by Mateo Kovacic at the interval after word of the suspension reached manager Rafa Benitez, and Cadiz subsequently filed a complaint with the RFEF.

Article 76 of the RFEF's disciplinary code states that any club who fields an ineligible player in the Copa del Rey will see its opponent advance to the next round.

However, while addressing the media, Perez conveniently cited Article 41, which pertains to clubs being properly notified about sanctions, as well as Article 112, which says all yellow cards are wiped out after the Copa del Rey's third round.

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From Perez's press conference:

In relation to Real Madrid's fielding of the player Denis Cheryshev in the Copa del Rey match against Cádiz yesterday, and after analysing the events in today's meeting of the Board of Directors, we wish to state that the one-match ban for accumulating three yellow cards in the Copa del Rey tournament last season, when the player was representing Villarreal, should in our view not take effect, because nobody notified the player of the ban, as is clearly stipulated in article 41 section two of the Spanish Football Federation's Disciplinary Code, which states: ... punitive resolutions will not take effect until the parties concerned have been personally notified.

It's an essential, basic principle of all punitive law that that the punishment does not take effect, and it is as if it did not exist, until the party receiving the punishment is notified.

As the player Cheryshev states, nobody notified him of the ban, and for that reason it should not take effect. Real Madrid were not aware of its existence, nobody notified the club of its existence, neither the player nor Villarreal nor the RFEF. The necessity for personal notification was explicitly acknowledged by the Administrative Court for Sport in its recent resolution of 30 January 2015.

Even if we accepted that the ban should take effect, which we deny, it must be considered to be automatically wiped out in accordance with the provisions of the final subsection of article 112, paragraph two, section one, which says, and I quote: ... in the Campeonato de España / Copa de S. M. El Rey, at the end of the third knockout round, all participants' existing cycles of cautions will be automatically annulled, and a new cycle shall commence for all participants in the round of 32.

Regarding the ban, Perez said: "We'll certainly take it to the TAD, because there is jurisprudence and we have a duty to defend what we believe is our right. If there had been any negligence by anyone, any notification that had gone astray or anyone who had not acted correctly, we would acknowledge that and we would apologise and we would take the measures we have to take. But the fact is that, quite honestly, if we were not told by the player, who is the individual who needs to know about it, if we were not told by either the Federation or Villarreal, who are aware of it, it was impossible for us to know about it."

Of course, it's entirely possible that Perez's defence will fall upon deaf ears, as the RFEF published Cheryshev's suspension on the Internet after he picked up his third yellow card in March, and nowhere in the RFEF's disciplinary code does it say suspensions are wiped out after the Copa del Rey's third round.

It's also worth noting that Osasuna was kicked out of the Copa del Rey in September for doing exactly what Real Madrid did at Cadiz. In other words, if Los Blancos are not booted from the competition, some may claim the club is above the law.