{"id":30530,"date":"2016-11-23T01:23:49","date_gmt":"2016-11-23T01:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/serge-aurier-psg-defender-refused-entry-to-uk\/"},"modified":"2016-11-23T01:23:33","modified_gmt":"2016-11-23T01:23:33","slug":"serge-aurier-psg-defender-refused-entry-to-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/serge-aurier-psg-defender-refused-entry-to-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"Serge Aurier: PSG defender refused entry to UK before Arsenal game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Paris St-Germain full-back Serge Aurier was stopped from entering the United Kingdom and will miss Wednesday&#8217;s Champions League match against Arsenal.<\/p>\n<p>The Ivorian, 23, was given a two-month suspended prison sentence in September for assaulting a police officer.<\/p>\n<p>PSG say the UK authorities granted Aurier a visa in October but revoked it on 16 November, citing his conviction.<\/p>\n<p>Uefa expressed &#8220;deep disappointment&#8221; in the ruling, while PSG said the timing showed &#8220;a lack of respect&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The French champions accused the Home Office of a &#8220;tardy response&#8221; and claimed the decision was not made until Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>As Aurier was born outside Europe, he was applying for a Tier 2 Sportsperson visa, which allows an individual to stay in a country for up to three years and typically takes three weeks to process.<\/p>\n<p>But the Home Office said in a statement: &#8220;The immigration rules clearly state that non-EU nationals who have received a custodial sentence of less than 12 months within the last five years will be refused on criminality grounds.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>There is no right to appeal against a visa refusal.<\/p>\n<p>Aurier, an Ivory Coast international, is appealing against his initial conviction, leading PSG to believe he is entitled to be presumed innocent.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Paris St-Germain strongly regrets the presumption of innocence has not influenced Britain&#8217;s decision,&#8221; said the club in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Uefa sent letters to the Home Office and Football Association supporting PSG, and said it was &#8220;regrettable&#8221; he could not play &#8220;for reasons which are not related to football and its regulations&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Aurier, who has played 40 times for PSG since making his loan deal from Toulouse permanent last year, is accused of elbowing a police officer outside a Paris nightclub in May.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to his suspended sentence, he was fined \u20ac600 (\u00a3521).<\/p>\n<p>PSG manager Unai Emery said the club &#8220;did everything in its power&#8221; to have Aurier available for their penultimate game in Group A.<\/p>\n<p>His side go into Wednesday&#8217;s meeting at Emirates Stadium second in the standings, level on 10 points with leaders Arsenal with both clubs assured of a place in the knockout stages.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-16575 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_92615111_sareuters.jpg\" alt=\"Aurier has previously appeared eight times in the Champions League for PSG\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paris St-Germain full-back Serge Aurier was stopped from entering the United Kingdom and will miss Wednesday&#8217;s Champions League match against Arsenal. The Ivorian, 23, was given a two-month suspended prison sentence in September for assaulting a police officer. PSG say the UK authorities granted Aurier a visa in October but revoked it on 16 November, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-30530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30530"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=30530"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=30530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}