UEFA’s Euro 2016 tournament in France has already seen a fair bit of drama and excitement on the soccer field, but all of that has been overshadowed considerably by a distressing amount of violence among fans, primarily between supporters of the English, French and Russian national teams, with some involvement from French police.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO168NcoqNc
https://twitter.com/Yousbak_OM/status/741636141238083585
The fighting has cropped up in a number of ways, from seemingly random bursts of aggression between fans at pubs to what some English sources say are targeted raids (for lack of a better term) from Russian goons. You can see more videos of the fighting in the streets over at Deadspin, but the scenes are all largely similar: unchecked aggression and violence. There was even a massive brawl in the stadium after England and Russia’s match, although the fans filming it were wise enough to stay far away:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ip6EtZ1nDA
To combat the wave of violence, alcohol sales have been severely restricted for the days of and before games going forward, but not everyone is taking the issue seriously. Russian MP Igor Lebedev (who is also on the board of Russian soccer) posted on Twitter, “I don’t see anything wrong with the fans fighting. Quite the opposite. Well done, lads. Keep it up!”
Well, if they do keep it up, at least in the stadiums, they might get their favorite team booted from the tournament. UEFA has punished Russia with a suspended ban, meaning if there is any more violence in the arenas themselves, the team is done at Euro 2016:
BREAKING: UEFA hands Russia suspended disqualification from #Euro2016. Kicked out if more violence in stadiums pic.twitter.com/T7QLtgqAWZ
— Rob Harris (@RobHarris) June 14, 2016
The fighting in the streets, while much more common, is out of UEFA’s jurisdiction. There’s still a long way to go in this tournament, so here’s hoping there’s time for cooler heads to prevail.
(Via Deadspin)
