By Andrew Warshaw
April 20 – FIFA president Sepp Blatter says points deductions are a far better deterrant for tackling racism than stadium closures – which UEFA have been particularly keen on – since the latter are ‘unduly excessive’ punishments that hurt the game itself rather than penalise the guilty parties.
Writing in his column for FIFA Weekly, Blatter says that while he wants “drastic and severe” sanctions for racism, points deductions will have more impact since “football without a crowd is like a concert without sound”.
FIFA itself has ordered games to be played behind closed doors before. Ukraine were made to play a World Cup qualifier against Poland in an empty arena in response to monkey chanting and Nazi salutes from fans.
But Blatter believes this is not the way forward.
“Games behind closed doors are also included in the [Fifa] code but I regard this penalty as an extremely dubious instrument,” he says. “They represent a disproportionately collective punishment. Furthermore it involves excluding innocent fans of the opposing team.
“In the final analysis matches played behind closed doors penalise football. The punishment is unduly excessive. Instead it is the troublemakers who must be punished. And it is clear to me that the clubs are responsible for the hooligans.
“To my mind there remains only one solution to the problem: sporting sanctions are the only effective punishment. It has to cause the clubs real hurt, otherwise nothing will change.”
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