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FIFA Fines Croatia and Greece for Fans’ Racist Behaviour

Categories: Croatia, Greece, Ethnicity & Race, Governance, Sport

In November 2013, Croatia and Greece joined the growing list of national football teams that FIFA has fined for racist behavior of their fans or team members. In Maqy of 2013, FIFA began implementing stricter sanctions aganist racismand discrimination. FIFA President Sepp Blatter stated recentky that this global governing organization must introduce harsher punishments to battle these issues, adding that FIFA was now even willing to “eliminate teams from a competition or deduct points” to that effect. Al Jazeera reports [1] more details regarding the fines issued to the Croatian and Greek national football associations:

FIFA fined the Croatia Football Federation 35,000 Swiss francs ($38,000) for incidents during its 2-1 loss against Belgium in Zagreb on October 11.

“Croatian supporters made far-right salutes which were used during World War II by the fascist Ustase movement,” fan monitoring group Fare reported to FIFA.

FIFA fined the Greek federation 30,000 Swiss francs ($32,500) following reports of far-right banners displayed when Greece beat Slovakia 1-0 in Athens on October 11.