HawkEye

Yesterday’s really significant football news was that UEFA decided to kick Feyenoord out of the UEFA Cup this year. This wasn’t a case of the players or the team contravening regulations – it was based on crowd behaviour. In a match earlier this year against AS Nancy, crowd trouble was sufficiently strong to require the intervention of riot police, with the use of tear gas. From what I understand, this was inside the stadium, too, and not the sadly all-too-common disturbances caused by hell-raisers only taking on a loose affiliation with the team.

Feyenoord are, understandably, up in arms about this. In particular, they say that it is punishing the team and the ‘genuine’ fans for the actions of a group that, in the words of their spokesman, “they want nothing to do with”. That said, there is unquestionably a very seedy side to Dutch football. It is common knowledge that you avoid Rotterdam city centre when PSV or Ajax are in town. Ajax, of course, have an identity as the Jewish club in Amsterdam. How do the Feyenoord fans greet visiting Ajax supporters, then? With the chant “Hamas, Hamas, the Jews to the gas.” Charming.

The important fact, however, is that there is behaviour that is unacceptable. That doesn’t just come with rioting crowds, it comes with matters such as the racist abuse directed at Ashley Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips when England visited Spain. And UEFA’s rules are quite clear that individual clubs are responsible for the behaviour of their fans inside their own stadium. Heck, England gets threatened with sanctions for the actions of its travelling fans in foreign countries, even when those fans don’t have tickets.

Ultimately, too, the authority of these rules depends entirely on the willingness of UEFA to enforce them. Sadly, all too often they have been prepared to let offenders walk away with a slap on the wrist. The fines that are given are often paltry – easily recoverable through sponsorship or gate receipts. Kicking a team out of a competition for crowd behaviour sends a very clear message – that rioting is unacceptable, and that teams unwilling or unable to control it will face severe consequences. The hooliganism in Britain during the 1980s massively dented the appeal of the sport; if these things are not controlled, then football fans everywhere will lose out.

Rules are only effective insofar as they are forced. I’m delighted to finally see UEFA facing up to the facts – that unless they are prepared to tackle the problems of hooliganism head-on, nothing will happen. A fine and a match behind closed doors isn’t nice, but it’s bearable. Is there a problem with targeting a team for the transgressions of its fans? Certainly. But seeing your team knocked out of a competition because of your actions might make people think twice. Both the perpetrators and those who haven’t taken enough action to stamp it out. Let’s just hope UEFA follows up this precedent.