HOOLIGANS shamefully returned to the football world, forcing the abandonment of a Euro 2012 qualifier between Italy and Serbia.
The match, between two teams who failed to deliver on their promising potential at the World Cup this summer, was only seven minutes old, when the referee was forced to take the players off the pitch in the stadium at Genoa. The match was stopped, due to a series of horrendous incident, the worst being flares thrown onto the pitch by Serbian hooligans in the Italian goalmouth, with the target being the Italian goalkeeper Emiliano Viviano.
Viviano had to hide for cover, as one of the flares hit him on the back of the head. His opposite number, Vladimir Stojkovic of Partizan Belgrade was hit by a flare on the Serbian team bus, when leaving the team hotel. Amazingly, the flare thrown came from Serbian fans. Emotionally tormented after the incident, Stojkovic refused to play in the match. Kick-off was delayed by half an hour, due to crowd trouble involving both sets of supporters. There had been trouble all day in the Italian city, with scuffles forcing riot police on the streets. In the carnage, a police car was attacked and set on fire. Pictures from Italian television showed some supporters leaving the stadium before the match eventually kicked off, already sensing that more trouble was ahead.
17 people have been arrested by Italian police, with 16 supporters being injured in the clashes throughout the day. The two teams, who are in the same Euro 2012 group as Northern Ireland will not play a rematch, as it is thought that UEFA will award the Italians a 3-0 victory. UEFA are investigating the trouble, which certainly looked pre-meditated and planned, rather than something in the heat of the moment. The Serbian Football Association face a heap of trouble, with the president of the Serbian FA immediately saying he was “embarrassed” to be associated with a country on nights like this. A severe fine, and the possibility of playing the rest of their qualifiers behind closed doors is more than likely, even expulsion from the tournament could be a possibility. Time after time, UEFA have fallen weak at the final hurdle, when it comes to maximum punishments. This time, they must make an example out of Serbia, to prevent this sort of trouble happening again.
Let’s just hope that this was just an ugly day for football….and not a return to the dark old days of the 1980’s.
