http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18597860 Not only this article, but, unfortunately as expected, there has been a fair bit or racism at Euro 2012. Are UEFA doing enought to stop it just by giving out fines? What else could be done, as this situation isn't acceptable.
Put very simply - No! What punishment is it for these racists idiots? Does the average Ukrainian, Spaniard, Russian or Croatian moron spewing this poison care about his (or her) National Federation being fined peanuts? Dock points in the up-coming World Cup qualification matches. If the behaviour continues then eject teams with guilty fans from the competition. Of course this is punishing the players and genuine fans - but until and unless harsher sanctions are applied and the individual football associations get tough on their own so-called fans, it will only get worse. I remember the over-zealous treatment meted out on individuals by the police in the Rookery in the 80s. Not pretty sometimes and indiscriminate in its application - but it stopped hooliganism in its tracks. We did not need the fences that many other clubs needed. Our home-grown hooligans simply got tired of being ejected time after time.
no. What use is a small fine to a footballing body? That doesn't affect the racists..they don't care. They should be banned..end of. They managed to seek out hooligans before now, and ban them...racists should get the same treatment.
If they were serious about stopping racism, they would start by appointing a president who is neutral towards all 53 federations. Not one who openly despises an entire nation and its people because of the actions of a few idiots 27 years ago.
The answer depends on your viewpoint, but for me the answer is a resounding NO! I suppose those living in Britain are lucky in this respect that varing governments have enacted legislation to govern their population's actions, also British history has exposed us to a great panoply of races, creeds, religions, colours, etc which has in general produced a far more tolerant nation that if this exposure had never occured. The aim of this piece is obviously directed at the past behaviour of some from certain eastern European nations and scaremongering by others. Poland, in it's history, was a great Euroopean expansionist coloniser and both Poland and Ukraine were colonised regularly so their experience of foreigners is completely different to ours where we have been an aggressive coloniser for the last 1000 years. My experience of Poland, limited to only a short period living and working in Wroclaw, is that the nation is modernising but some of the population's outlook is a lot slower changing and they are probably where we were 40 years ago. Change will come, but we cannot expect them to embrace everything we have in the same timescale as we have when they have different experiences and a different starting point. Back to the original question UEFA are not doing enough, but they cannot do it all by themselves.
Of course they are, they have declared a "zero tolerance policy"...surely that is enough? Seriously, as stated above, whilst there are weak ineffectual leaders in UEFA, there will be no change. There needs to be a very simple set of penalties and fining a country less than fining a player for promoting something on his Y fronts is an utter joke. Dock some points from future qualifiers or finals, ban the FA's from the guilty countries from attending games...there are many things that could be done if there was a real will. Unfortunately protecting sponors and hob-knobbing are higher priorities.
No but whose to say in UEFA there aren't some racist people themselves hence the realtive lack of a punishment? Are they that bothered about it...compared to telling players off for free advertising.
No it isn't, as the John Terry incident proves. It could have been dealt with quickly and effectively by the FA with the backing of UEFA and FIFA, in the same way they didn't deal with Luis Suárez, rather than being left to fester as it has and end up in the courts.
I think the original comment was clearly meant to be ironic. To UEFA "Zero tolerance" appears to mean "we might take inadequate action if we can see no possible way of avoiding it."
I fail to see why UEFA should have to do anything, just as I fail to see what use UEFA fining a country's FA is - they are not the ones committing the offences and fining them is little more than a money raising exercise to fill the coffers of an obviously corrupt organisation. As racism is an offence in the eyes of the law, I'd say that it should be incumbent on the police, who are usually there in large numbers, to take appropriate action against the perpetrators - haul them out of the matches and have the courts impose fines, jail sentences, or life time bans. Why else are clubs/countries forced to have a police presence at matches, at great expense, if we don't expect them to do what they are paid to do?
