The UEFA Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body (CEDB) on Friday announced that AEK Athens from the Greek Super League is banned from participating in any European competition for the coming two years.

As for the ongoing 2018-19 season, the Greek club will play the next two UEFA games behind closed doors and pay an 80,000-euro fine (about 90,732 U.S. dollars).

UEFA released a list of charges against AEK Athens that included: throwing of objects, setting off fireworks, field invasion by supporters, crowd disturbances, insufficient organization, displaying an illicit banner and blocked stairways. 

All of this happened before the UEFA Champions League group game on November 27, 2018, between AEK Athens and visiting Ajax at the Olympic Stadium of Athens. Crowd incidents broke out at the stadium and, according to SkySports, some AEK fans threw a petrol bomb and flares into the stands housing Ajax fans. Riot police also clashed with supporters of the Dutch club.

The brutal actions of their supporters did not help AEK Athens, which lost that game 0-2. Actually, they lost all six games in that group, scoring only two goals but losing 13.

"Our team apologized publicly and immediately recognized its part of responsibility about what happened and insulted mostly the name and the important European history of AEK FC. The most important thing for all of us is to realize and think about that this decision does not mean the end of this escapade, but the beginning of an extremely difficult road of complete compliance with the actual meaning of this decision, along with the need of taking drastic action in order to avoid finding ourselves at this position ever again, because in that case there will be no return," said AEK Athens in statement on Friday.

AEK were the champions of the Super League last season and currently rank No. 3 on the standings table. Staying away from European competition could hurt the club hard financially.