Italy awarded 3-0 over Serbia following fan chaos
UEFA decided to award Italy a 3-0 win over Serbia after the sides’ UEFA 2012 European Football Championship qualifying match was abandoned.
On 12 October, the game was called off after six minutes due to Serbian supporters disrupting the game by throwing missiles and fireworks on to the pitch.
Serbia plan to appeal the decision made by football’s European governing body on Friday, 30 October, which also states that they must play their next qualifying match, against Northern Ireland, behind closed doors
They also have a suspended sanction, which means that they could be forced to play a second game in an empty stadium if similar trouble erupts at one of their matches in the next two years.
Italy were also hit with a one-game suspended stadium ban for their inability to control the Serbian supporters.
A statement released by the Italian football federation confirmed UEFA’s decision as “a 3-0 victory in favour of Italy and two games behind closed doors for Serbia, of which one is conditional.
"Italy have been given a conditional one game behind closed doors.
"This is the decision of the disciplinary commission of UEFA which met today in Nyon, based on the abandonment of the game between Italy and Serbia on 12 October in Genoa following the crowd unrest by Serbian fans."
It had been suggested that Serbia could have been thrown out of the competition completely, but the sanctions were still severe. They have also been fined 120,000 euros and will not be able to take their supporters to their remaining three away games in the
qualifying group in Estonia, Northern Ireland and Slovenia.
Serbian Football Association president Tomislav Karadzic revealed that his organisation would appeal the decision to award Italy the victory.
He said that: "We are not happy with that part of the UEFA verdict and we will appeal for a replay of the match because we think the only fair decision is to have a winner determined on the playing field.
"We don't think justice has been done there but as for the other sanctions taken against us, we can't really complain and the measures against Italy are also what we expected."
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