Some Odd Ways of Celebrating Fair Play Day

By: Bob | September 26th, 2006

This past weekend, fans and clubs around this beautiful world of ours were treated to FIFA’s Fair Play Day, a noble effort to promote peace and harmony through the sport of football. How did things go? Quite good at the thousands of venues that hosted matches, but not so good in Colombia, Greece and Albania where fan violence triumphed over fair play.

The worst of the action took place in Colombia where one person was killed and more than 160 arrested following clashes between fans from the home side Deportes Tolima and Millionarios. The trouble started when Deportes Tolima fans threw rocks at the Millionarios team bus despite the fact that there were 1,000 police on hand to prevent just such a thing. We’re guessing with that level of police presence there has been trouble between the two sides before.

In Albania, a league that has a reputation of being a bit anarchic, the match between Flamurtari and Teuta Durres was delayed 12 minutes because the Flamurtari fans decided to attack the referee, who awarded a controversial penalty kick to their opposition.

Members of the Flamurtari bench then ran on the pitch towards the referee and the fans started chanting sexually-abusive chants at him and throwing stones. As the coaches were led away by police a fan punched a linesman and at least one policeman was hit with a water-bottle.

The town’s mayor was called in to restore order and Teuta Durres went on to win the match and escape with their lives.

Finally, a riot broke out in Greece following Panathinaikos’ 2-1 win over PAOK Thessaloniki. Four fans were arrested as 24 cars, two buses and a motorcycle were destroyed in the fun.

Mark your calendars now for the 2007 Fair Play Day coming sometime next year in September.