Serbia vs England U21 - The Incident

It's a similar kind of attitude as many (or at least some very vocal) Uruguayans had after Suarez-gate. Being told you're not up to scratch by a supposed 'bigger' country tends to provoke a naturally defensive reaction.

Pride tends to trump introspection. Especially when the perception at large is that the 'bigger country' has a limited knowledge of the place in question outside of said flashpoint/points. Which is more often than not true, and then leads to a self-justifiable dismissal of the criticism.

Which then of course leads to nothing being done, which then only bolsters the outside disapproval. And round and round we go.

'Tis what 'appens an that init.
 
The Serbian FA's reactions have made this situation worse, hopefully they've made it worse for themselves. A straightforward apology for a minority (if that was what it was) and a statement that they would be improving stewarding and attempting to ban the culprits could have started a healing process - or at least have given UEFA an excuse to gloss over the incident.

Instead they went straight from fingers in the ears, "we're not listening" to rewriting video history. It is now a direct challenge to UEFA, FIFA and to the whole idea of impartial officials.

There were UEFA officials at the ground, and the England team's complaints were apparently made during the match. If UEFA equivocate, then it'll be a disastrous day for UEFA and all the pre-match t-shirts and TV adverts with players changing race and shirt won't gloss over it.

I can forgive the ref a moment of jobs worth panic as he redcarded Rose, while all around him a situation he couldn't control was kicking off. It's now time for the ref, the other match officials, and the other UEFA staff at the ground to show that there's some point to them being there - and for the UEFA disciplinary board to back them up.
 
What happened afterwards was a result of England players provocation. If you dance around giving it the biggun you will expect some type of reaction - and in Serbia it will find you quickly.

From your tone, you sound almost proud of the response.

Anyway, he brought it on himself with his reaction. I have no sympathy.

That fancy watch you wear that was stolen when you were mugged; it's your own fault.

That short skirt you wore when you were assaulted? What did you expect?

Put your mobile on the table and expected it still to be there? You deserve to lose it.

Contributory negligence, it's a fine defence. There is absolutely no justification for the violence and aggression shown regardless of what Danny Rose did. He did not demonstrate violence or aggression himself. And, although you have claimed that you don't defend the racism, you fall short of outright condemnation, and you don't seem to think that the persistent barrage of abuse justified Danny Rose kicking a football away in anger and celebrating the win with defiance. Even if it didn't, his actions cannot be held up as incitement to violence and abuse.
 
The Serbian FA's reactions have made this situation worse, hopefully they've made it worse for themselves.

I wish that were true. Sadly though, this is already something of a non-event in Serbia. And there's absolutely no panic involved whatsoever. I know this is scary for some people to picture, but the lying and the spin, the concealment, the twisting, this whole charade is nothing new. This is second nature to these guys. They don't have to invent a thing, don't even have to be creative in lying. It's lamentably easy to do. The 'internal' so to say risk of lying is benign, because there's a significant amount of people who won't even mind. "So what if they're lying?", as long as they're lying for the good of Serbia. That's the end of that discussion.

For an outsider this is very hard to comprehend. Not that there's some fecked up people living here and that they hold some outrageous opinions, because you can understand that by just reading individual opinions even on a board like this, but the scope of it all, the proportion. That's hard to understand, that these are not just some bad apples, the minority that tarnishes the reputation of the rest, but actually significant portions of the population.

I had friends that cheered and celebrated like never before in their lives when 9/11 happened for instance, and not just a couple of really weird ones, but dozens, and I keep meeting new ones who think like that all the time.
Now get your head around that if you can. Basically if you're a westerner, you are fit to burn. When you're in a mindset like that, doing monkey chants is child's play.

I expect nothing to change in the foreseeable future. FIFA would have to do something completely out of character here for this to become the talking point it deserves to be, and I just can't see that happening.

It's sad, it really is.
 
I watched the game and was saddened by the scenes at the end

I was even more saddened to see the same old prejudices pop up among the English public opinion afterwards though, for me they ended up overtaking the initial abuse of D. Rose. The "vocal minority" argument is as old as the football game but it still holds true, and to see the sweeping generalisations of all Serbs on social networking websites got me wondering who the actual racists were.

We could categorise all Englishmen according to their former captain JT, or after the people booing Evra for having received racial abuse, but as far as I'm aware we don't
 
I'd have thought it would be seen as common sense that if they have been fined over actions like this before it obviously isn't working.

What really needs to happen is FIFA to take action over the Serbian FA and control what they do to block racism out of that country first and foremost. I don't agree with banning them from a tournament or two yet, that would just cause even more outrage and possibly more abuse. By deducting each of their NT's a certain number of points would be a fairer way of handing out punishment as they haven't learned from their fines. The next step would then be to ban them from playing games/from tournaments.

I don't agree with making them play behind closed doors because in a way that is sending out the message that the Racists have won and that when someone is abusive in that manner, we are all just going to hide away from it. Take a stance.
 
I watched the game and was saddened by the scenes at the end

I was even more saddened to see the same old prejudices pop up among the English public opinion afterwards though, for me they ended up overtaking the initial abuse of D. Rose. The "vocal minority" argument is as old as the football game but it still holds true, and to see the sweeping generalisations of all Serbs on social networking websites got me wondering who the actual racists were.

We could categorise all Englishmen according to their former captain JT, or after the people booing Evra for having received racial abuse, but as far as I'm aware we don't

Absolute rubbish. Serbia have a history of events like this, so the minority shit doesn't wash, especially with the fa releasing trash videos like that, and the captain and coach both denying the undeniable.

If you want to tar every Englishman with the John Terry brush, then that's up to you and your intellect. As for me, I stand by my opinion that Serbian football is still in the dark ages and shouldn't be allowed to compete until they get with the times and clean up their act. Which looks like it'll be a long time before that happens...
 
Food for though, perhaps, from a poster at Football365:

Trying To Understand

Everyone has rightly pilloried Serbia for the shameful scenes during, and at the conclusion of, the Serbia U21 Vs England U21 fixture last night. There is no way of defending what happened. Racism is abhorrent, ignorant and unnecessary. Understandably there have been calls for severe punishment. I feel that the Serbian situation needs resolving, though. Punishment won't achieve this. We need to understand the reasons for the persistent presence of racism in football in Serbia.

In England we've come a long way since the first wave of immigrants arrived en mass from the West Indies and Ireland at the end of World War II. My Irish grandmother often talks about this. The signs in houses read 'No blacks, no Irish, no dogs'. It's impossible to imagine this now, testament to the increased tolerance and awareness in our forward looking society. This has, however, taken the best part of 60 years. The African, Caribbean, Irish, Asian and Eastern European immigrants to the UK have stayed and created their own societies, tattooing their culture onto British society at large. Yet racism is still an issue here in some quarters.

Now compare our own recent history with that of Serbia, a nation that rid itself of Slobodan Milosevic only 12 years ago. He effectively took control of Serbia (or the geographical region now known, officially, as Serbia) in 1987. He controlled the media and installed a violent nationalist regime. He forced all 'non-Serbs' out of the country, brutally evicting and murdering thousands of Albanians. He portrayed Croats, Muslims, Albanians, Slovenes, Germans, Austrians and Turks as enemies. He murdered his political opponents and incited racial hatred. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost to the nationalist cause.

This was all within the past 20 years. How many immigrants do you think have moved to Serbia since the end of World War II? How many black people reside there? How many 'non-Serbs'? The Revolutions in 1989 across the Eastern Bloc opened the area up. Yet the region has a troubled recent history exemplified by tyrants like Milosevic. It hasn't had the opportunity to embrace foreign cultures, preoccupied as it is with restoring its own. We're very fortunate, mostly, for what we have in the UK. Most people can live in peace and lead their own lives as they see fit. We've embraced other cultures and celebrated it. In Serbia, there are no other cultures.

We've effectively had a 40 year head start. Can we not find a way of helping Serbia take 30 years to reach the level it has taken us 60 to reach?

Lengthy bans for the Serbian football team would only serve to confirm the fear and loathing of foreign cultures. It would be easy for any ban to be blamed upon black people. This would only make the situation worse. Resolving such issues, as we've seen over here, takes time. A lot of time. And it's still not perfect. If those in power in Serbia have no interest in preaching the word of tolerance, what hope does football have of being a moral arbiter in Serbian society?

Source:
http://www.football365.com/mailbox/8173171/How-To-Tackle-Racism-And-More...
 
Throwing things on opposition players, racially abusing opposition players warrants more than just points for me. Not sure about the right punishment though. Possibly playing in an empty stadium.
 
Absolute rubbish. Serbia have a history of events like this, so the minority shit doesn't wash, especially with the fa releasing trash videos like that, and the captain and coach both denying the undeniable.

If you want to tar every Englishman with the John Terry brush, then that's up to you and your intellect. As for me, I stand by my opinion that Serbian football is still in the dark ages and shouldn't be allowed to compete until they get with the times and clean up their act. Which looks like it'll be a long time before that happens...

And England have a history of slavery and colonialism

Your opinion about Serbian football is fairly limited - take Lamine Diarra's statements today saying that in the five years he spent at Partizan, he never received any racial abuse and hopes to live in Serbia again. That's a person who spent 5 years at the heart of Serbian football.
 
And England have a history of slavery and colonialism

Your opinion about Serbian football is fairly limited - take Lamine Diarra's statements today saying that in the five years he spent at Partizan, he never received any racial abuse and hopes to live in Serbia again. That's a person who spent 5 years at the heart of Serbian football.

Here we go, trying to gloss over the actual facts with throwaway trash comments.

And limited? We are talking about that disgrace the other night and the even more telling reaction by the serbian Fa and players/coach in the aftermath. Spin it all you like, but that was a disgrace and has no place in the modern civilised game.

Anyway, what do you think should happen now? A ban for Serbia? A slap on the wrist? Nothing?
 
Obviously because one player who said he never experienced any racism washes away all the racism that happened the other night.
 
Here we go, trying to gloss over the actual facts with throwaway trash comments.

And limited? We are talking about that disgrace the other night and the even more telling reaction by the serbian Fa and players/coach in the aftermath. Spin it all you like, but that was a disgrace and has no place in the modern civilised game.

Anyway, what do you think should happen now? A ban for Serbia? A slap on the wrist? Nothing?

I think the people at the helm of the Serbian FA should all be fired - then again I was already of that opinion prior to this week's events

As for kicking out the Serbian team from international competitions, that wouldn't make a feather of a change and would merely further isolate a country who still vividly remembers being kicked out of a competition (Euro 1992) groundlessly
 
I think the people at the helm of the Serbian FA should all be fired - then again I was already of that opinion prior to this week's events

As for kicking out the Serbian team from international competitions, that wouldn't make a feather of a change and would merely further isolate a country who still vividly remembers being kicked out of a competition (Euro 1992) groundlessly

Your first paragraph I agree with. Mind you, the same can be said of the English FA, UEFA, FIFA and pretty much all the old idiots who run the game around the world ;)

As for the ban, I just don't see how it'll change without a lengthy one. English football definitely sorted itself out on the back of one, and how can Fifa/Uefa keep expecting players to travel to a country where they know it will happen again and again? Especially the next time England are due to play there.

Pussy footing around has done nothing in the past and will do nothing now. But people don't have to worry, the gutless in charge won't do a thing.
 
What needs to be done is what works, not what the public outrage demands for punishments sake. Was our hooligan problem solved by the post Heysel ban? No. Lansdowne Rd & Marseille both happened over 10 years after for a start. Did it force us to look into the problem more? A bit. But it wasn't really addressed seriously until the 90s. Did it foster resentment? Again, a bit, yes.

What actually solved it was our own government & FA acknowledging and pro-actively dealing with the problem. Partly helped by the upcoming Euro 96 and the desire for better PR after Lansdowne. It's very hard to force other societies & cultures to do anything. US foreign policy is always a reliable testament to that. It has to come from inside.

Then again, all the evidence so far is that the domestic bodies have no intention of even acknowledging the problem. But evidenced by our own Serb posters (and more extremely some of the ridiculous youtube comments on that video) having a pop at Serbia is only creating a more entrenched, defensive attitude there. This is obviously infuriating, but also at least a bit understandable (from their POV) and not without precedent. It's not like the "I'm not a racist, you're the real racist for calling me a racist" argument is new or particularly surprising.

So again, what needs to be done is what works. And I'm not sure banning them, or telling them how horrible they are is going to. Unfortunately I have no idea what will
 
And England have a history of slavery and colonialism

Your opinion about Serbian football is fairly limited - take Lamine Diarra's statements today saying that in the five years he spent at Partizan, he never received any racial abuse and hopes to live in Serbia again. That's a person who spent 5 years at the heart of Serbian football.

Dear god. Why are you all being like this? It's like you can't even see what's wrong.

Tell you what, seeing as your lot have a history with this, let's ban them from European competition, and the next time we start to introduce slavery in football, we'll get banned from European football, okay?

Anyway, there's nothing else I can add here that hasn't already been said, so I'm out.
 
Nobody is claiming that England is akin to Shangri La-on-Sea for pity sake.

But neither are we standing idly by while London Zoo takes its Meet the Monkeys experience into football stadia.


Nani Nana, do you think the the Serbian authorities will feel motivated to provide a safer and more welcoming football environment without something more substantial than a fine?
 
And England have a history of slavery and colonialism

Your opinion about Serbian football is fairly limited - take Lamine Diarra's statements today saying that in the five years he spent at Partizan, he never received any racial abuse and hopes to live in Serbia again. That's a person who spent 5 years at the heart of Serbian football.

I have a quite opinion on the Serbian football and society on the other hand. To say that there is no racism (and in fact hate against almost all strangers) in Serbia is simply not true.

Also, this is not the first time that similar accidents are having in Serbia, remember the burn of Albanian flag. I don't know if a ban can solve a this complex situation (and I doubt it) though UEFA should do something.
 
What needs to be done is what works, not what the public outrage demands for punishments sake.

It isn't outrage in my case, more "meh, fining and warning hasn't worked, it's time to get tough". Lets face it, if the ultimate crime on pitch is a red card and ban, why shouldn't it be the same at higher levels?

If they react with outrage to being banned, then they really don't get what they've done wrong (which they clearly don't) so they won't change anyway with pansy measures. Which have been tried, which failed.


Again, to those bringing up Nato and slavery and all the bollocks to deflect, this isn't a general castration of the Serbian people, this is football. A sport, a source of entertainment, what should be in a healthy competitive environment. If the Serbian fans, players, coaches and FA's idea of that is racism and violence, then they shouldn't be playing alongside everybody else until they learn how to behave in a civilised manner both on and off the pitch.
 
Racism and general Xenophobia in eastern Europe is rampant. In Serbia, a strongly nationalist country, it's even more rampant.
It's a weird form of it. You won't see black people abused or anything (because there aren't many there in the first place), but it's like casual racism, people talking all kinds of crap amongst themselves and generally looking down on anyone who's got a different skin colour, or different religion, or any number of other things. It's universal and no one seems to mind.
Also didn't Serbians brutally assaulted their gay pride parade crowd a couple of years back?
 
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has said he should be rewarded for "reducing suffering", not accused of carrying out war crimes.

Beginning his defence at his trial in The Hague, he said he was a "tolerant man" who had sought peace in Bosnia.

Yes. Not hard to understand if you are familiar with Serbian politics. In the end, prime minister of Serbia, Ivica Dacic was the right hand of Slobodan Milosevic, while the president of Serbia, Tomislav Nikolic was the vice chairman of Seselje's party, man who is on Hague and who proposed that all Kosovan Albanians should be infected with HIV virus.

Sad thing is that it looks like things are not much better in Serbian football too.

As for kicking out the Serbian team from international competitions, that wouldn't make a feather of a change and would merely further isolate a country who still vividly remembers being kicked out of a competition (Euro 1992) groundlessly

What do you mean? It was Yugoslavia who qualified, not Serbia. And it was Serbia who ruined the Yugoslavia.

I think a solid NATO bombardment on civil targets is the only solution here, really. Sub-humans shouldn't be allowed to bother us with such a perverse display, moreover if it occurs during tea time.

Oh, the irony.
 
Has Vidic made any sort of statement on this yet?

He has no reason to comment or get drawn into the matter but I think a few well chosen words from him would help put this incident into some context and be very helpful.
 
Food for though, perhaps, from a poster at Football365:

Source:
http://www.football365.com/mailbox/8173171/How-To-Tackle-Racism-And-More...

It's the same points that are often raised when discussing how democracy and equality in the middle east is ever going to work, and while it's valid points I don't think you can apply them to the situation being discussed here. Serbians can be all kinds of bad as much as they want really, but when they're playing in UEFA tournaments (or others for that matter) they agree to a certain set of rules - and without having checked them I'm fairly sure one of them is "You can't do racist taunts/chants". I don't really care if they gather up and do monkey chants on random street corners during the week, but when they step inside the stadium they will have to behave according to UEFAs rule-set - and if they fail, they deserved some sort of punishment.

What needs to be done is what works, not what the public outrage demands for punishments sake. Was our hooligan problem solved by the post Heysel ban? No. Lansdowne Rd & Marseille both happened over 10 years after for a start. Did it force us to look into the problem more? A bit. But it wasn't really addressed seriously until the 90s. Did it foster resentment? Again, a bit, yes.

What actually solved it was our own government & FA acknowledging and pro-actively dealing with the problem. Partly helped by the upcoming Euro 96 and the desire for better PR after Lansdowne. It's very hard to force other societies & cultures to do anything. US foreign policy is always a reliable testament to that. It has to come from inside.

Then again, all the evidence so far is that the domestic bodies have no intention of even acknowledging the problem. But evidenced by our own Serb posters (and more extremely some of the ridiculous youtube comments on that video) having a pop at Serbia is only creating a more entrenched, defensive attitude there. This is obviously infuriating, but also at least a bit understandable (from their POV) and not without precedent. It's not like the "I'm not a racist, you're the real racist for calling me a racist" argument is new or particularly surprising.

So again, what needs to be done is what works. And I'm not sure banning them, or telling them how horrible they are is going to. Unfortunately I have no idea what will

While a lot of that is true of course, you also mention some points that make the two cases very very different. As you say, the Heysel-ban didn't solve hooliganism by itself, but I think it's widely accepted that it did put even more focus on hooliganism and it put pressure on the governing bodies to solve it, so although it didn't solve it I think it did push the process forward quite a bit. Hooliganism would most likely have been solved sooner or later anyway, but I think the ban sped up the process.

As you also say, the governing bodies in England were actually both aware of the problem and acknowledged it. They were already working on solving the issue they had. Serbia neither acknowledges it or seems to be working to solve it, so I think it's obvious someone needs to tell them to get working on it. As already pointed out, the fines clearly hasn't helped, so what will? I think it's time to start hitting them where it hurts and send out a clear message that their behaviour simply will not be accepted.

As other people have said forcing them to play in front of empty stands or throwing them out of the tournament will probably piss them off even more. But really; so what? UEFA has treated Serbia very well so far by all accounts (given their very lenient punishments of racism in the past), so it's time to stop being nice. If the majority of football fans in Serbia genuinely don't understand why their team should be banned because of their racist chants it's all the more reason to ban them really. Will they actually sort it out though? Only time will tell really. If they don't, they'll just keep getting banned so I'm guessing that they will eventually realise that if they want to watch their national team play they can't chant racist stuff.

Has Vidic made any sort of statement on this yet?

He has no reason to comment or get drawn into the matter but I think a few well chosen words from him would help put this incident into some context and be very helpful.

Better if he doesn't. What can he say really? If he condemns the racism he will go against his FA and will probably be hated in Serbia. If he tries to justify/explain it then, well, just see what's happening to the posters on here trying to do that. There's no way he can win really, so better just stay out of it.
 
Anyway, what do you think should happen now? A ban for Serbia? A slap on the wrist? Nothing?

Whatever FIFA or UEFA decides, I think it needs to be policy driven and provide definitions of unacceptable behaviour provided for every single game played under their stewardship.

Likewise, any fines, bans or penalties need to be consistently and universally applied. That is the only way any change on a worldwide basis can have any chance of succeeding.

Serbia need to be shown that this type of behaviour is unacceptable, but they also need to be shown that its a worldwide policy with zero tolerance from the governing bodies.
 
As you also say, the governing bodies in England were actually both aware of the problem and acknowledged it. They were already working on solving the issue they had. Serbia neither acknowledges it or seems to be working to solve it, so I think it's obvious someone needs to tell them to get working on it.

That's unfortunately the sticking point. I'm literally stunned by their "official" reaction. The video is insanely silly.
 
Parker's point is that Rose was only hurting himself and was actually giving the fans the satisfaction of seeing him unsettled by their abuse.

Look at Zidane's response to Materazzi's comments about his sister. Who suffered and whose country benefitted? This is why Parker is urging professionalism as the lesson for the future as well as a dignity that refuses to be dragged down to another's level.

The way to end the racist chants is to rise above them and allow the proper channels to punish the Serbs.

It's called maturity. Something Parker has and the young player needs.

Parker's comments about the naivety of the English coaches and about the most effective and fair punishment for the Serbs are also first class IMO.
 
Again, to those bringing up Nato and slavery and all the bollocks to deflect, this isn't a general castration of the Serbian people, this is football.

Oh yeah? Here are some choice comments that popped up on social networking websites in the aftermath.

shane millson ‏@millson85
Serbia needs nueking bunch of sick pricks. If not it needs fencing off so none of its sick people can ever leave.

Tom Hawksett ‏@thawksett
why is serbia allowed to be a country? i think its a cracking bit of land to test out missiles or paedo's or diseases

MUFC Talk 24/7 ‏@MUFCTalk247
There's only one shred of decency which has come out from that shithole (Serbia) in the past 35 years- Nemanja Vidic.


These are 3 in a million, Twitter was afloat with those for a good 2 hours after the game. That's even without mentioning the comments from some England u21 players, as I remember Matt Derbyshire saying something along the lines of "we all know what kind of people they are" back in 2007.

Yes this is a general castration, even if some don't resort to such sweeping statements. And the worst from a Serbian viewpoint is that the same logic was applied by Mrs Thatcher when she spoke of the "collective responsibility" of Serbs for what happened in the former Yugoslavia.

Don't forget these comments led to England playing a big part in the 1999 bombings of Serbia, that's just thirteen years ago.

So yeah, when you see some tits justifying bombs on civilians because of some idiots resorting to monkey chants at a football game, when the said tits pretty much invented racism back in the 18th century, you'll rightly feel pissed and the problem is that, to reflect on what Wowi says,

Serbia need to be shown that this type of behaviour is unacceptable, but they also need to be shown that its a worldwide policy with zero tolerance from the governing bodies.

You won't have any credibility among the Serbian public if you say this is a "worldwide policy" when you have just pin-pointed them as a particular set of people. And that's the error most here are doing but feeling comfortable with it.

Personally I dont give a shit if our teams are kicked out of future competitions, we wouldn't ever get past the quarter-finals anyway, and have quite a bit of economic problems to deal with prior to enjoying the football. But when you get feckwits coming up to you and justifying the bombings of an entire civilian population by the conduct of a football minority, yes you can be pissed.
 
For a start, the 'proper channels' have no interest in punishing Serbia in any meaningful way. Secondly, you can say 'maturity' all you like, but how old is Rose? He was put in a situation that very few have evr suffered at an early age, what was he supposed to do?

Yes, I agree that there's a level of maturity to gain, and no doubt he'll learn from this, but Parker's comments are as equally dismissive of the situation as they are constructive.

I agree about the coaches though, if in fact they were stupid enough to not expect something to kick off in a country where the norm IS to kick off.
 
Yes this is a general castration, even if some don't resort to such sweeping statements. And the worst from a Serbian viewpoint is that the same logic was applied by Mrs Thatcher when she spoke of the "collective responsibility" of Serbs for what happened in the former Yugoslavia.

So, Serbia wasn't at fault for the destruction of Yugoslavia. It only started 4 wars, that's nothing

Don't forget these comments led to England playing a big part in the 1999 bombings of Serbia, that's just thirteen years ago.

Not those comments. The 15 thousands killed Albanians, 800 thousands Albanians departed out of the country and more than 50 thousands Albania's houses that were burned had a big part on Nato bombings.

Or would you have preferred an another Srebrenica?

Personally I dont give a shit if our teams are kicked out of future competitions, we wouldn't ever get past the quarter-finals anyway, and have quite a bit of economic problems to deal with prior to enjoying the football. But when you get feckwits coming up to you and justifying the bombings of an entire civilian population by the conduct of a football minority, yes you can be pissed.

You're right. Anyone who think that a country should be bombed because of what some idiots do in a football match is an idiot.