Stricter Punishments for Crowd Trouble

Last updated : 08 May 2005 By Gary Fish

New rules being considered by UEFA could see clubs deducted points if their fans throw missiles at games.

Crowd trouble has been seen in several matches throughout the Champions League and in Scotland's domestic leagues, while Bury fans have said that Swansea fans threw missiles on to the pitch during their end of season game at Gigg Lane yesterday.

At present UEFA has no power in domestic leagues and can only fine clubs and impose closed games in UEFA competitions, however,
it intends to bring in new, more severe measures for crowd misbehaviour in Champions League and Uefa Cup matches, with the hope that national associations will take up those punishments also.

"We'd probably recommend (that national associations implement it)," Uefa chief executive Lars-Christer Olsson told the Sunday Herald.

"That's the nature of our organisation: we introduce rules on a European level and ask associations to implement them on the domestic level.

"I think we have now reached a level in top professional football where the income is so high for clubs - especially for players and coaches - that you can question the fine as a punishment.

"This is why it is important to introduce new measures like taking points away, for example, because we need to have supporters policing each other.

"That has happened in the campaign against racism. When a group starts making monkey noises, others tell them 'keep quiet because we're the ones who suffer'."

In recent weeks, missiles were thrown at Celtic players in the Old Firm derby, while two goalkeepers were hit and injured by flairs in UEFA Champions League and UEFA Cup games.