Tottenham Hotspur manager Antonio Conte has said that he "can't accept" UEFA's "unfair" decision to effectively throw the club out of Europe.
Spurs pulled out of their final Europa Conference League group game against Rennes earlier this month, having suffered a coronavirus outbreak within their squad.
However, on Monday UEFA ruled that they had acted against competition rules and therefore forfeited the match, resulting in an automatic 3-0 defeat.
Spurs finished third in Group G as a result, ending their hopes of playing European football in the New Year, and Conte has hit out at the decision.
"Positives? No. For sure this is an incredible decision. This decision is not fair. All the world knows we were facing a big problem like COVID. We didn't play not through our fault but because we had many players with COVID and the Government decided to stop our training sessions and close our training centre," Conte told reporters.
"Honestly, for me, the club and our fans, it's incredible the decision UEFA wanted to take. It's unfair for sure. We deserve to play for qualification on the pitch, not in this way. I'm very disappointed for UEFA's decisions.
"I don't want to understand but I hope in the future, in the next step, something can change because we deserve to play for qualification on the pitch, not in this way. It's not our fault.
"There's another step to confirm or not this incredible decision. I'm very disappointed with UEFA because everybody knows the problem. It means maybe someone doesn't know the problem we were having and maybe some personal interests [were involved]."
Tottenham are next in action on Wednesday when they face West Ham United in the EFL Cup quarter-finals.
Barney Corkhill
