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The England Thread

'O Zio

Well-Known Member
Dec 27, 2014
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Or they can move the matches to another country. They’ll do that before banning countries I reckon.

I dunno, that just seems like a complicated way of playing behind closed doors. Obviously means that the team have to travel rather than playing "at home" anyway but to be honest the individual players have all traveled to meet up with the team anyway. I'm sure some of them play in Sofia but other play all over Europe so whether they travel back to Sofia or to some other country doesn't make a huge amount of difference.
 

Marty

Audere est farce
Mar 10, 2005
39,885
62,562
I don't think they can wriggle out of it now. They have to hand out effective punishments to these countries. Fines, especially the recent ones, are utterly pointless. Home games should be played behind closed doors and if the problem returns after that, lengthy bans from all International games.
On that subject, Romania v Norway tonight is being played in front of 30,000 kids after Romania found a loophole in the closed doors ban they'd received, which they have exploited to allow 30,000 kids to go to the stadium for free.

On one hand, good for the kids and all, but it really makes it feel like a lot less of a punishment.
 

spursfan77

Well-Known Member
Aug 13, 2005
46,680
104,956
I dunno, that just seems like a complicated way of playing behind closed doors. Obviously means that the team have to travel rather than playing "at home" anyway but to be honest the individual players have all traveled to meet up with the team anyway. I'm sure some of them play in Sofia but other play all over Europe so whether they travel back to Sofia or to some other country doesn't make a huge amount of difference.

I think they’ve done it before though for other punishments.
 

'O Zio

Well-Known Member
Dec 27, 2014
7,405
13,785
I think they’ve done it before though for other punishments.

Yeah fair enough. Just saying for me it seems like basically the same thing as playing behind doors. It's a lot more effort to organise but not really much of a tougher penalty particularly.
 

nailsy

SC Supporter
Jul 24, 2005
30,536
46,628
"An hour after the final whistle, just as Greg Clarke, the chairman of the FA, had talked about, among other things, England’s backroom staff being deeply upset by events on the pitch, Bulgarian journalists could be seen laughing and joking, greeting this horror show not with shame or remorse, but as though it was, at worst, an inconvenience.

The statement from Bulgaria’s manager, Krasimir Balakov, that he had not noticed anything, that he just wanted to talk about football, was an anatomy of cowardly dissembling. Balakov had a responsibility to his sport and to basic human decency. He failed on both counts."

Southgate and some of our players were laughing and joking as they came off the pitch so I wouldn't read too much into the journalists doing the same thing. I'd be more interested in what they wrote about last nights events.

On that subject, Romania v Norway tonight is being played in front of 30,000 kids after Romania found a loophole in the closed doors ban they'd received, which they have exploited to allow 30,000 kids to go to the stadium for free.

On one hand, good for the kids and all, but it really makes it feel like a lot less of a punishment.

Another team did that recently. I think we're going to see it a lot more often in these situations.
 

dontcallme

SC Supporter
Mar 18, 2005
33,986
81,917
Southgate and some of our players were laughing and joking as they came off the pitch so I wouldn't read too much into the journalists doing the same thing. I'd be more interested in what they wrote about last night

Can’t find any Bulgarian outlets in English.

The Daily Mail reports a mix. Vesti reported about their shame and an article in Trud claimed they are guilty but Dnes goes down the shameful route of UEFA are looking for a black sheep.

Given their manager has been fired and several outlets and blaming the Bulgarian fans are guilty of shaming their country my initial view is they are taking this seriously.
 

'O Zio

Well-Known Member
Dec 27, 2014
7,405
13,785
On that subject, Romania v Norway tonight is being played in front of 30,000 kids after Romania found a loophole in the closed doors ban they'd received, which they have exploited to allow 30,000 kids to go to the stadium for free.

On one hand, good for the kids and all, but it really makes it feel like a lot less of a punishment.

Bit of a weird one that. I'm really in two minds about it to be honest. Hopefully the kids are a bit more open minded than the adults seem to be.
 

bomberH

Well-Known Member
Jun 4, 2005
28,455
168,220
I haven’t read through the last few pages so I’m sure all of these have been covered, but things of note for me are....

Abandoning a match is all very well but what about the traveling fans who no doubt paid a lot of money to watch them. Maybe the opposition FA should have to refund ticket and air fare money if the game is abandoned?

If a team are 5-0 down there’s nothing to stop their fans being racist because it won’t matter. Will it stay a 5-0 win or does it default to a 3-0 win. What if England needed lots of goals to qualify etc? Banning all fans is the only way forward as that will affect the normal fans too.

It seems in this instance, a section of fans came to the match specifically to start the racist aggro. This could happen anywhere to be fair and that should be taken into consideration when punishing Bulgaria. I know there were a couple of other incidents when they left, but isolated incidents happen everywhere, especially here.

The manager and goalkeeper have been atrocious in their post match interviews. Both denied anything happened. I know they have to be a bit biased towards their own country but nothing will ever change if the people in the midst of it won’t admit it even though everyone around the world heard it.

England handled it really well. And I’m glad they didn’t walk off.

In conclusion, I think the only way to get racism out of international football is to ban the whole set of fans if they have previous. You can never stop the isolated wankers anywhere around the world, like the club supporters who had a go at Sterling (can’t remember what team it was) and the keyboard warriors on Twitter. You can ban them permanently but when a large section of thousands of supporters are monkey chanting of Nazi saluting, you have to ban the whole set of fans for then next few games. it’s unfair on the good fans but maybe then things will get done.
 

'O Zio

Well-Known Member
Dec 27, 2014
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13,785
The dick head's resigned:

Sorry for my ignorance here, but why was everyone so desperate for him to resign in particular? From what I've seen he hasn't said anything about it, whereas the keeper and manager have both made some really stupid comments.
 

bomberH

Well-Known Member
Jun 4, 2005
28,455
168,220
England have been charged by UEFA with disruption of the Bulgarian national anthem.....

Think that’s UEFA reminding England who’s boss. Doesn’t this happen (wrongly, obvs) in most international games. How many times have we been charged with this before?
 

MattyP

Advises to have a beer & sleep with prostitutes
May 14, 2007
14,041
2,980
Just got back from Sofia. Apologies for linking something from The Mail, but here’s a reasonably good article

Link

From the away section, you couldn’t hear anything (other than jeers), but I did see Mings gesticulating in the first half so was pretty clear what was happening to me. This was at the other end of the ground to where the Nazi signals were taking place.

Spoke to a couple of people, separately, who were in the home section, both left at half time as in their words it was very uncomfortable.

The guy I go to England games, including this one, is black, we didn’t experience any racism at all, been to a few places where we have walked down the street and people start making monkey noises, Sofia is certainly not the most racist place we’ve been to.

Doesn’t make what happened any better.
 

teok

Well-Known Member
Aug 11, 2011
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33,607

topper

Well-Known Member
Jan 27, 2008
3,806
16,254
England have been charged by UEFA with disruption of the Bulgarian national anthem.....

Think that’s UEFA reminding England who’s boss. Doesn’t this happen (wrongly, obvs) in most international games. How many times have we been charged with this before?
We'll probably get a bigger fine than the Bulgarians
 

Yid-ol

Just-outside Edinburgh
Jan 16, 2006
31,097
19,276
We'll probably get a bigger fine than the Bulgarians

Probably England get kicked out the competition and Bulgaria gets told not to do it again.... That's how UEFA and FIFA tend to work on this.
 

soup

On the straightened arrow
May 26, 2004
3,494
3,592
Fitting really. Nazi salutes against English lions tend to bite nazis in the arse. This they should have learned by now!

One of these days the news that Hitler and his nazi losers actually lost and then spent the remainder of their days hidden away like cowards, will filter through the thick skulls of these fascist dicks.

Their heroes are losers, not some powerful force from the last century.

If it ever happens again I hope our fans just drown it out with a rendition of the Dambusters theme.

Go on England!

 
May 17, 2018
11,872
47,993
Sorry for my ignorance here, but why was everyone so desperate for him to resign in particular? From what I've seen he hasn't said anything about it, whereas the keeper and manager have both made some really stupid comments.

He made a lot of noise before, rather than after
 

DJS

A hoonter must hoont
Dec 9, 2006
31,261
21,760
To be fair it pisses me off when our fans ignorantly don’t respect the opponents national anthem.

But since when do UEFA take action about it?
 
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