Both Serbia and England to be charged

The scenes following the England Under-21 team's win over Serbia on Tuesday were disgraceful. As England's players naturally celebrated their late winner with some exubernace, there was nothing that could possibly excuse the Serbian players and support team from running over and trying to disrupt those celebrations.

It seems there was some racial abuse from the crowd, and it was little wonder that Danny Rose was so angered by everything that was happening round him that he kicked the ball into the crowd. That the referee booked him for that (second bookable, so Rose was sent off) was farcical given what was going on nearby, with Tom Lees being slapped around the head by Serbian players on at least two occasions.

I hear that UEFA is going to charge the Serbian FA with alleged racist chanting by fans and to charge both associations over the behaviour of players at the end of the game. Let's hope that UEFA also investigate and charge Serbia for the missiles that were thrown towards the England players as they celebrated their victory.

We will see what the results of those charges are.

The Serbian FA tried to deny accusations of racist chanting, no doubt fearing a worse fine than the ridiculous £16,000 fine it received for racist chanting by fans in 2007.

Serbia have a track record in this area. It needs to be stopped.

Italy and Serbia face sanctions for violence in Genoa

The abandonment of the Italy v Serbia game in Genoa on Tuesday as a result of violent scenes involving Serbia fans is a disturbing occurrence. The violence, I mean, not the abandonment itself.


After the kick-off had been delayed due to flares being thrown by Serbian supporters towards Italian fans, the game was called to a halt after only six minutes by Scottish referee Craig Thomson as the flare-throwing continued, one landing near Italian goalkeeper Emiliano Viviano.


Uefa has launched an investigation into the problems.


Although it appears that Serbian fans perpetrated the violence sanctions could be given to both Serbia and Italy, as the home team, who se federation has responsibility for organising the game. It has long been a mystery to me how fans get flares into stadiums, as they have done in Italy for many years.

Serbian Football Association chief Tomislav Karadzic said the violence had “brought embarrassment and shame on our country.” He added: “the state must react.”

Italian Football Federation security chief Roberto Massucci said that Serbia should have prevented troublemakers from travelling. “They should have been stopped by the Serbian officials,” he said.

Let us hope this is not the start of a violent trend.

Nineteen qualifiers for the World Cup

Now nineteen nations have qualified for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.


Eight nations were added to the list over the weekend.

The latest qualifiers are:
Ivory Coast clinched their place with a Didier Drogba equaliser against Malawi.
No mistakes by Germany, who beat Russia 1-0 to condemn the Russians to a play-off place.
Denmark won European Group One, ahead of Sweden (whom they beat 1-0 on Saturday) and Portugal, who are still fighting it out for a play-off place.
Serbia smashed Romania 5-0, which means that France have to face the play-off nightmare.
A last-minute equaliser by Alberto Gilardino (2-2) against Republic of Ireland means that Italy won their group.
Chile qualified in South America by virtue of a 4-2 win over Colombia.
Perennial qualifiers Mexico will be there again, after a 4-1 clincher against El Salvador.
The United States qualified with a game to sapre after a 3-2 against Honduras.

The other 11 are:
England
Spain
Paraguay
South Africa
Japan
Australia
South Korea
Holland
North Korea
Brazil
Ghana