The list already contains Russia, England, Ireland, Germany, Ukraine and Croatia and now the football associations of Hungary, Belgium and Portugal are the latest to be charged by UEFA over the behaviour of their supporters at Euro 2016.
The lions share of the blame has been properly directed at the small band of supporters from each country who went obviously looking for trouble but some of the finger pointing has also been directed at the French organisers.
BBC commentator Jacqui Oatley said that she had her bag checked and her hairspray confiscated at Lens yet fans got in to the match with flares.
I would imagine after the threat of terrorism the bag checks would be thorough but apparently not if fans are able to bring flares into games.
Obviously if every person entering the stadiums were frisked and their bags scrutinised you would need to start queuing hours earlier and it seems unfair that the FA of each country is held responsible for their own fans behaviour if they start throwing chairs and tables around after a session so the blame is rightly apportioned to the fans who are the guilty party here.
Why nine of the 24 countries have been hauled before UEFA to receive a rap across the knuckles and a fine for what their fans are doing is not easy to explain but it already seems Croatia is the only one to apologise while the rest seem to be looking around for someone else to blame.
1 comment:
Up to UEFA or FIFA who run and schedule the events, up to the police to keep order, up to the stewards and officials to make sure nothing dangerous is taken into the stadium and the fans are segregated and up to the fans to not be idiots. Your 'government is bad' rhetoric falls down flat on this one.
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