Once again the ugly head of racist chanting was heard echoing around a football arena on Tuesday night, as England U-21’s defeated Serbia U-21’s in Serbia to qualify for the 2013 European Championships. The English black players were hurled racial abuse throughout the match, culminating with horrific scenes at the end of the match as brawling broke out everywhere. Tottenham’s Danny Rose seemingly suffered the worst of the chanting, with monkey noises being heard all over the stadium as he left the pitch. Once again, English players have had to suffer the kind of horrid abuse that we’ve fought so hard to eradicate from the English game. Once again, it was the fans of the Serbian national team who were the ones handing out the disgusting taunts, echoing the 2007 incident involving the same two teams. Now must surely be the time for UEFA to strike hard? Well, if history is anything to go by, that won’t be the case.
In 2007, QPR defender Nedum Onouha was racially abused whilst playing for England U-21’s against Serbia U-21’s. The punishment was a £16,000 fine handed out to the Serbian FA, a typically low fine from the European governing body. Other fines that UEFA have handed out for racism include £18,000 to Slovakia in 2002, £10,000 to Croatia in 2008 and £34,500 to Bulgaria in 2011. Compare this to the £80,000 fine that Nicklas Bendtnar suffered during the 2012 European Championships for showing a sponsor during a goal celebration, it becomes truly farcical. These incidences are not few and far between and have all happened in the last ten years. Surely this show’s UEFA that the ‘Kick it out’ campaign is well and good, but stronger disciplinary action needs to be taken when these incidents occur.
The punishments that UEFA could hand out stretch far beyond the confines of a small, token fine. If they truly wanted to make these FA’s act upon the behaviour of their fans and sometimes players, they could hand out tougher, more far reaching levy’s. They could start with playing a certain amount of home games behind closed doors, followed by expulsions from a tournament qualifying for repeat offenders. They could have 6 or 7 figure fines that would really effect the offending FA’s, or could force the teams to play all their games away from home. Whatever the action taken it needs to fit the crime, and currently racism is the footballing equivalent of shop-lifting.
At the time of writing this article (Thursday 18th October), UEFA had charged both FA’s for their players and staff behaviour during the ugly scenes that followed. They also charged the Serbian FA with a further charge over the ‘alleged’ racist chanting. Chances are both FA’s will receive some form of small fine for the first charges, with the Serbian FA receiving a further fine for the chanting offence. UEFA will continue to hide behind their mockery of a punishment system leaving similar incidents to happen again in the future.
I will be surprised if UEFA hand out any kind of meaningful punishment for the racist chanting. Nowadays, alas, they are more concerned with protecting their TV rights than anything else. I hope I am proved wrong but their feeble responses in the past have provided a sad precedent.