The Football Federation has ruled regarding Reading fans who caused the disruption of a match against Port Vale in January. The club was fined £7,500. Suppose you ever need a story about not the most pleasant pages of football history for your study courses. In that case, you can contact the uk essay writing service and cite this example as one of the most recent and relevant.
In football history, there have been many comical and extremely dramatic cases when football matches ended tragically due to the aggressive actions of fans or poor organisation. We propose to recall similar cases in club championships and national team matches, such as the match with Reading, where fans’ actions ended negatively.
Blackpool – Huddersfield
In the 2014-15 season, Blackpool fans disrupted the match against Huddersfield in the last round. The fans’ aggressive actions were to protest against the club’s management. Right in the middle of the game, Blackpool fans, who were in the stands for about two and a half thousand, ran onto the football field in the 55th minute of the match. The fans called it a planned action ‘Judgement Day.’ The fans occupied the centre of the pitch and refused to leave. After numerous persuasions of stewards and referees, the head referee decided not to continue the match.
The fans explained everything by the behaviour of the club president, who allegedly refused to contact them and ignored criticism of the team’s poor results. He claimed that his performance should be judged at the end of the season. By the last round, Blackpool was at the bottom of the standings, having managed to earn 4 wins, 13 draws, and 28 defeats for the year. As a result of these results, the head coach and 16 other players left the team.
Serbia – Albania
Out of two qualifying matches for the 2016 European Championship, these teams finished only 1. In fact, the decision of the organisers to bring together the football field teams of countries with an open conflict looked strange. In such cases, for example, with Armenia and Azerbaijan, the teams are divided into different groups. Even before the first match in Belgrade, the atmosphere was extremely tense, and it was obvious that it would not have been possible without clashes. But everyone suspected clashes between football hooligans outside the match.
Everything turned out to be much more dramatic. In the 42nd minute, Albanian fans launched a drone onto the pitch with a provocative poster attached to it against the rival country. Serbian defender Stefan Mitrovic tore the flag of Great Albania, which was attached to the drone, which caused aggression from the Albanian players. A brawl broke out on the field, and the home team fans also got involved and broke through from the stands. Referee Martin Atkinson decided to stop the match, and the Albanian team quickly left the field and refused to continue. Interestingly, Uefa initially penalised Albania with a technical defeat but then changed the decision, and the technical defeat was awarded to Serbia. Both teams were fined 100,000 euros.
Bastia – Lyon
This scandalous match took place in 2017 in the French championship. The game started almost an hour late because even before kick-off, Bastia fans attacked Lyon players during the pre-match warm-up. The stewards and police managed to remove the aggressive fans from the stadium, and the Lyon players agreed to take them to the pitch. However, the story does not end there, as at the end of the first half, a fan ran onto the pitch and started a fight with Lyon’s goalkeeper. Other players joined the scuffle, and a general brawl started.
The match could have continued after the pause, but the referees decided not to resume the game. The second half of the game was initially planned to be played on another day, but the disciplinary commission ultimately canceled this decision and punished Bastia with a technical defeat.
Fenerbahce – Shakhtar
This match in 2011 was friendly, and in theory, nothing could provoke aggression from the fans. Still, everything happened exactly at the time when the Turkish team managers were under investigation for match-fixing. It should be said that the match was nervous from the start, and the referee had to stop several times because of the pyrotechnics, coins, and bottles that flew from the stands onto the pitch. The teams still managed to play a half, but on 67 minutes, Fenerbahçe fans started to break onto the pitch. They started to chase the players of both teams, especially without choosing their targets. Luckily, the players managed to safely take refuge in the stands.
The journalists were less fortunate. The fans organised an attack on the press box, injuring a Ukrainian reporter. The journalists claimed that fans had targeted them from the beginning of the match. The general reason for such aggression from the fans was the sanctions against the Fenerbahce management, who, as we mentioned, were accused of match-fixing. Because of the scuffles, the club was fined, and the investigation resulted in the exclusion of the Turkish team from the Champions League in 2011-2012.
Italy vs. Serbia
The 2010 football match between Italy and Serbia in Genoa will be remembered for a long time. The riots started before the match when Serbian fans stoned a bus with their own players and then stormed inside, demanding explanations for the loss against Estonia. The agitated fans were calmed down, but the match was still delayed for 30 minutes because of the fire show organised by Serbian ultras at the stadium.
The match managed to start, but in the 6th minute, the fans started throwing fireworks at the pitch again, and the referee decided to stop the game. The Serbian team was awarded a technical defeat, and the Italian team was fined 100,000 for failing to organise security at the stadium.
Conclusion
Football is a game of millions, and emotions often run high, and fans cannot separate the game from the events around it. History remembers many matches that could not be played due to aggressive fans. Security measures at stadiums are getting stronger every year, but it is impossible to say that it will be possible to eliminate such cases.
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