Sports

Violence: UEFA threaten to disqualify England, Russia

Published

8 years ago

June 13, 2016

Violence: UEFA threaten to disqualify England, Russia

England and Russia will be thrown out of Euro 2016 if the fan violence from their competition opener in Marseille continues, UEFA have warned.

Ugly scenes both before and during Saturday night’s Group B game in Marseille left a number of supporters injured, with one England fan in a critical condition in hospital.

And the bloody events have been deemed serious enough for European football’s governing body to speak out with a threat of disqualification, a move away from their usual protocol of not acting on incidents away from stadiums.

In a statement, UEFA’s executive committee said they: ‘will not hesitate to impose additional sanctions on the Football Association (FA) and Russian Football Union (RFU) including potential disqualification… should such violence occur again.’

The Russians were charged with ‘crowd disturbances, racist behaviour and setting off of fireworks’ on Sunday but England have now been issued with a strongly-worded warning, too.

The FA have also been told to inform England’s travelling fans of their responsibility to behave in France this summer – and chief executive officer Martin Glenn is treating the threat with the ‘utmost seriousness’.

UEFA’s threat came after FA chief executive Glenn spoke to ITV about the ‘shocking’ and ‘upsetting’ violence inside the Stade Velodrome, urging England fans to stay out of trouble for the remainder of Euro 2016.

That interview was filmed before UEFA’s strongly-worded statement, though, and Glenn later said in a statement the FA had taken heed of the governing body’s warning.

‘We take this letter from UEFA with the utmost seriousness,’ he said. ‘We understand the potential implications of our supporters’ actions and wholly accept that every effort needs to be made by The FA to positively urge them to act in a responsible and respectful way.

‘Violent scenes like those witnessed over the weekend in Marseille have no place in football, nor society as a whole. We want people – fans and locals – to feel safe and enjoy a festival atmosphere at the Euros and we will continue to work closely with all the relevant authorities to achieve that.’

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