Uefa Fines Red Star Belgrade Over Ratko Mladic Chants
Serbian club punished with €90,000 fine and away ticket ban after fans praised convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic.
Quick Look
Uefa fined Red Star Belgrade €90,000 and banned away ticket sales after fans chanted in tribute to convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic during a match against Viktoria Plzeň.
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Why It Matters
Ratko Mladic was serving a life sentence for genocide and war crimes, including the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, before dying in prison at age 84.
Uefa has issued a fine to Serbian club Red Star Belgrade following chants by supporters in tribute to convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic, who died on the day of their European fixture last week.
Visiting fans chanted Mladic's name, saluted him and unfurled a banner praising him during a 5-1 defeat by Czech side Viktoria Plzeň on 27 August.
Mladic, a Bosnian Serb commander, directed the 1995 massacre of over 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica as well as other war crimes. He died last week at the age of 84 in The Hague, where he was serving a life sentence for genocide.
Uefa announced late on Friday that Red Star must pay 90,000 euros (£77,000) for breaches including inappropriate chanting and "racist and/or discriminatory behaviour."
Furthermore, the Serbian champions are prohibited from selling tickets to supporters for their next away fixture in European competition, when they play Swiss club Lugano in the Conference League.
A secondary away ticket ban has been deferred subject to a two-year probationary period.
The 1991 European champions have a history of Uefa disciplinary actions regarding fan behaviour, including racist slurs targeting Roma people.
Mladic was sentenced to life in prison back in 2017 for what was called one of the “most heinous” crimes in human history by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which convicted him.
The massacres took place in July 1995 when Mladic’s troops rounded up thousands of unarmed Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica, lined them up while tying their hands behind their backs and shot them over a period of several days. Women and girls were systematically raped.
Remains of the deceased were then bulldozed into mass graves, which were later dug up and hauled away in order to hide the extent of the killings.
Earlier this year, his attorneys requested his release on humanitarian grounds as his defence teams said he was in a state of “advanced, irreversible medical decline”.
Reports said that Mladic died in a UN prison hospital in the Hague, in the Netherlands. A family member confirmed the news to the Associated Press.
Open Questions
- Will Red Star Belgrade appeal the Uefa sanction?
- How will the club prevent future supporter misconduct?
