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River Plate refuse to play Copa Libertadores final vs. Boca Juniors in Madrid

River Plate have rejected CONMEBOL's proposal to move the second leg of the Copa Libertadores final against rivals Boca Juniors to Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabeu on Dec. 9.

The first leg was a 2-2 draw at Boca's Bombonera Stadium on Nov. 11, a game staged a day after it was supposed to be played due to heavy rain. Then the second leg on Nov. 24 had to be postponed due to crowd trouble near the Monumental stadium in Buenos Aires that left fans and several players injured as River Plate fans attacked the Boca team bus.

The Argentine club released a statement on Saturday, saying that moving the game to Madrid "distorts the competition" and "harms" the fans.

River went on to say the club was not solely responsible for the attacks, and that the club can't expect fans to travel to Europe -- citing the financial and distance issues.

"It's incomprehensible that the most important match in Argentine football can't happen without issues in this very country, days after it hosted the G20 summit," read the statement. "Argentine football, along with the federation, can't allow that a handful of violent citizens halt the Superclasico's development."

CONMEBOL ignored the appeals on Saturday and released information on ticket sales but although each team have been allocated 25,000, they must sell most of that allowance to fans outside Argentina.

"For security reasons local authorities have decided to give each team 5,000 tickets to sell to their fans in Argentina," CONMEBOL said.

The other 20,000 could be sold only to fans living abroad, CONMEBOL said in a statement. The teams must provide lists of the 5,000 names who buy the Argentina allowance.

Reuters contributed to this report. 

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