Sam Wallace: After a third offence, will Platini and Co have the strength to throw a club out?
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Your support makes all the difference.It was clear from the initial response to Uefa's sanction against CSKA Moscow over the racial abuse of Yaya Touré that an English football public that feels it has seen far too much of this regards the punishment as weak and inadequate.
In defence of Uefa on this occasion, the point is where the first offence will take CSKA rather than the underwhelming initial stage of the process. It is hard to deny that partial closure of an 18,000-capacity stadium that only had 14,000 fans in it when Manchester City came to town last week is not really likely to solve the problems of Russia's racist fans.
Yet, when seasoned anti-racism campaigners like Piara Powar, formerly of Kick it Out, now of the Football Against Racism in Europe (Fare) network, endorse Uefa's new sanctions they do bear closer examin- ation. If CSKA re-offend they will face a full stadium closure and a €50,000 (£43,000) fine. A third transgression and they will be in hitherto uncharted territory: points deductions, suspensions, possibly even a disqualification.
What is hard, understandably, for many to accept was that this summer was Uefa's year zero on racism. Too late? Certainly, but better than nothing, The new three-step process has already sanctioned other European clubs who, along with CSKA, now find themselves under a whole new pressure to address racism within their clubs' support.
The reckoning will come if Uefa's control and disciplinary body are forced to go back a second and third time to these clubs. In the case of the likes of Dinamo Zagreb, Legia Warsaw and Honved of Budapest, they are already on their second offence, forced to play matches behind closed doors and fined €50,000 and more.
That is the way that CSKA are heading if they cannot control their racist supporters. When a club finally hits its third offence – and it will surely happen at some point – then Uefa's political will, in this regard, will be most severely tested. Do they have the strength to throw a team out of a competition?
In the meantime, it is remarkable that the Uefa venue director in Moscow last week failed to act on the request of the Romanian referee and fourth official that a stadium announcement be made that the racial abuse should stop. One only need to have attended a Champions League, Europa League or European Championships tie to know that Uefa floods these occasions with its own little army of blazers.
Sticklers for protocol, they even have a rule for the correct photocopying of team-sheets. That this one man took the unilateral decision to ignore the referee's request for an appeal over the public-address system against racial abuse is, in some regards, the most troubling part of Uefa's response to this latest episode. No wonder the governing body did not name him.
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