UK Football

Arsenal's Eduardo handed two-match ban by UEFA

16:37 BST, Tue 1 Sep 2009
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Eduardo of Arsenal celebrates scoring his team's second goal against Glasgow Rangers during their 2009 Emirates Cup soccer match at the Emirates Stadium in London, August 2, 2009. REUTERS/Andrew Winning (BRITAIN SPORT SOCCER)

LONDON, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Arsenal striker Eduardo da Silva has been handed a two-match ban for deceiving the referee in last week's Champions League play-off against Arsenal, UEFA said on Tuesday.

Arsenal have three days to appeal against the punishment for the Brazilian-born Croatian international, UEFA said in a statement.

Eduardo went down in the Celtic game after poking the ball past goalkeeper Artur Boruc, who dived at his feet but appeared to make little or no contact with the striker.

Eduardo, who spent a year out of the game after suffering a badly broken leg in February 2008, converted the penalty himself to put Arsenal 1-0 ahead and 3-0 up on aggregate, effectively killing off Celtic's hopes of saving the tie.

The English side eventually won 3-1 for a 5-1 aggregate win.

The decision to take action against Eduardo infuriated Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger who described it as disgraceful and accused UEFA of launching a witch hunt.

Eduardo will miss Arsenal's first two Group H matches away at Standard Liege on Sept. 16 and at home to Olympiakos on Sept. 29.

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