Once again European football's governing body completely bottles punishing a big team
Unsurprising and disappointing. Those are words which could be used to describe most fines and bans given out by UEFA over the last decade or so, but even by their standards this seems particularly paltry. Napoli have just been fined £21,500 for not only causing up to seven hundred of Swansea's nine hundred travelling fans to miss the first half an hour of the match, but also because of illicit banners and fireworks being let off in the stadium.
Given Arsenal fans had warned to expect this kind of behaviour from the Naples club (after experiencing it themselves in this season's Champions League), it seems hard to believe that deliberately stalling Swansea fans was anything other than pre-meditated. To put it in context, the amount paid in travel alone by the seven hundred visiting Swansea supporters will easily total thousands more than the fine handed to the Italian club - a fine which was likely to be met with smirks by whoever at Napoli is responsible for paying it. I can't imagine there's a single first-team player there who doesn't earn more than that in the week, so it's hard to see what the point is in even making them pay such a pathetic amount. Should we have expected any less though?
Here's a list of fines given out in the past by UEFA. As you can see, they really are a joke:
- October 2000 - Sinisa Mihajlovic given two match ban for racially abusing Patrick Vieira.
- June 2007 - Serbian Football Federation fined £16,500 for "the racist chanting of supporters and the improper conduct of their players". after fans aim racist abuse at England's U21 international Nedum Onuoha.
- June 2008 - Croatian Football Federation is fined nearly £10,000 for their fans displaying a racist banner and "improper conduct".
- February 2012 - Porto fines £16,700 for their fans consistently racially abusing Mario Balotelli throughout their game against Manchester City in the Champions League.
- February 2012 - Nicklas Bendtner fined £80,000 and banned for two games for revealing "sponsored underpants" promoting Paddy Power.
- June 2012 - Croatian FA fined £80,000 after Poznan fans racially abused Mario Balotelli, throwing a banana onto the pitch.
It seems Europe's governing body have no real desire to punish anything serious unless it potentially screws with some kind of advertising deal - I'd imagine whoever was paying to advertise during the game Bendtner dropped trousers was particularly miffed and given how money-orientated football is these days I can imagine UEFA responding to that with more earnest simply because they didn't want to upset their advertising partners, some of whom were/are undoubtedly rivals of Paddy Power.
As for the Napoli fine, no-one will have expected any different and it's just sad that you can predict a complete lack of action over things which should (and could) be stamped out by a firm ruling from European football's governing body. This current climate of pathetic token responses simply can't go on forever, and at some point UEFA will have a president free from corruption, coercion and shortsightedness. Until then, however, we'll continue to be disappointed by a corrupt and inept football association.