Punishment for racism? Closure of the Spartan stadium is very likely!

They haven’t been to a football game in a year. They hadn’t seen their favourites in the main group of the European Cups for six years. And when everything was pointing to the fact thatSpartan fans could repeat this pilgrimage again after years, they messed everything up. According to the head of the football section of the daily Sport, Jan Podroužek, their racist behaviour may well have caused the closure of Prague’s Letná.

Much has been written in the last few hours about how a small number of rude spectators behaved in the stands of the Generali Arena after Monaco midfielder Aurelien Tchouameni’s goal at 0:1, the immediate consequences for the team, and how the incident is being talked about all over the world.

But what could be the real consequences and punishment for the racism that has been condemned more and more harshly by the public and the leadership in recent years?

Let us divide this into two parts. The first is the punishment of individuals who can be shown to have committed racist slurs, monkey-whistling, or other hate speech, and at the same time have their identities verified. All of this will be based on a camera system, which should be thoroughly and reliably linked at Letná in Prague so that no perpetrator escapes.

Such people could face criminal prosecution for racial vilification and a lifetime ban from the football stadium. Sparta can be expected to hand over the CCTV footage to the police for further investigation.

However, the club itself has so far only briefly commented on the racism at its stadium through its spokesman Ondrej Kasík, who told Sport: ‘We do not want to comment on the whole case at the moment. We would just like to repeat what we said last time before the match against Rapid. The fans and the football public know our long-standing position on racism.”

The second part is the punishment for the club as a whole. The Prague club will definitely not avoid that. And although it may seem extremely unfair, unfortunately, all Spartan fans will quite possibly be punished for the undignified behaviour of a group of people.

Indeed, the club, which is now assured of participation in at least the Europa League group stage, faces the real threat of closing part, or even all, of the stands for home matches in one of the continental cups.

“It is very likely,” journalist Jan Podroužek admitted in the podcast Where the Hare Runs. “UEFA, as we have seen in some previous cases, acts in these cases like they were tearing violets with dynamite,” he recalled, for example, the Trnava incident just a few days ago, which saw the stadium completely closed for one match.

To do this, they will have to empty the piggy bank at Letná, a fine is actually a matter of course in these cases. The aforementioned Trnava was issued a bill for 50,000 euros (1.28 million crowns) by UEFA, which is not exactly a small amount. Meanwhile, Sparta must have quickly remembered 2018 and the duel with Subotica, for which they had to pay even CZK 5 million.

Spokesman Kasík confirmed on Wednesday evening on ČT24 the scenarios that the club is facing.

Sources: Where the hare runs, iSport