England plead for Uefa mercy

Mayday, mayday. The Football Association will put themselves at the mercy of Uefa on Thursday, when European football's governing body considers three charges arising out of England's European Championship tie against Turkey at Sunderland's Stadium of Light and decides whether the next one, against Slovakia at Middlesbrough in June, has to be played behind closed doors.

The FA's official submission will ask for leniency and suggest that a final warning would help them put a positive message over about respecting the opposition and their national anthems. It is also understood that they will not request any tickets for the match in Turkey next autumn, and will seek government help in preventing any fans from travelling.

All three charges to be debated by Uefa's Control and Discipline committee are serious enough individually, and taken together could well, if proven, result in spectators being banned. It would be the first high-profile match in this country without a crowd since West Ham had to play a European Cup-Winners' Cup tie against Castilla in similar circumstances 23 years ago, following crowd trouble at the first leg in Spain.

Two of the charges – spectators encroaching on to the playing area and racist chanting – can hardly be denied; the FA will merely attempt to minimise their extent. A photograph of supporters on the pitch already adorns Uefa's website. The only defence is that this was virtually a first offence and could be regarded as exuberance, the occasional consequence of what must remain, in the country of Hillsborough, an irrevocable decision to remove fencing. Fortunately, no Turkish player was actually attacked.

Turkish players were, however, deemed to be involved in incidents in the tunnel and have been charged accordingly, along with unnamed England officials. Neutrals present were convinced that unpleasant scenes took place, but the FA will claim that there was nothing more serious on England's side than a few verbal exchanges.

The third charge, of racial abuse from the crowd, was added later and cannot be denied; nor can the tradition of booing the visitors' national anthem (boorish, though hardly confined to England). Having rightly complained about abuse of black players in eastern Europe, which recently resulted in Slovakia having to play behind closed doors, the FA are not in a strong position.

It may be a small bonus that two members of the 10-strong committee are Britons – Ulsterman David Bowen, the long-serving secretary of the Irish FA, and David Taylor, his opposite number in Scotland. Both men will be sympathetic to the difficulties of preventing crowd abuse, having failed over many years to stamp out sectarian chants and songs at Northern Ireland matches and Old Firm games in Glasgow respectively.

Manchester United's manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, is also sweating on disciplinary action after his ill-advised comments about the Champions' League draw being rigged. Four days before the first leg against Real Madrid, he had a little dig about "the power of Madrid" in relation to Roberto Carlos escaping a ban and claimed of Uefa, "They don't want us there [in the final]". There was no explanation offered for this allegation or for the conspiracy of alleged draw-fixing that paired United with the favourites, while the Spanish and Italian clubs were kept apart until the semi-finals.

The man responsible for the draw, an Austrian FA official called Friedrich Stickler, consulted his lawyer, and Uefa immediately dismissed the comments as "silly"; as United's manager was sensible enough to apologise, a fine and/or warning should suffice. The FA might not be so lucky.