Greek football clubs are to be denied up to €40 million per year in state lottery funding unless they deal with crowd violence, the government has said.


Reuters reports that the order came after clashes between fans in stands and on the pitch at the Kavala v Aris Salonica Greek Cup semi-final match last Thursday. Aris fans had ignored a ban on visiting supporters attending the game.

"Greeks have watched the latest troubles with rage and indignation," Greek general secretary for sport Panagiotis Bitsaxis told a news conference.

"We have spoken to all the institutions but unfortunately the dialogue and agreements have collapsed. All of this forces our hand to say that violence cannot be financed from Greek taxpayers."

Bitsaxis said if violence continued electronic ticketing could be introduced and a code of disciplinary and administrative sentences created, which could even shut down clubs who fans were consistently violent.

If someone running things on that side of the continent had any type of vision whatsoever, Eastern European football would have its own reality television network by now. From top to bottom Hollywood scripts have been leaching from their football for years without a single royalty, I’m sure of it. Between the action flicks, the capers, the gangsters and the occasional feel-good, it’s like walking into a video store, but with dodgy video feeds.

Insider matches - statistics from January, 1, 2010.

Insider matches - statistics from December, 14, 2008 to December, 31, 2009.

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Saturday’s Turkish Superliga game between Bursaspor and Diyarbakirspor didn’t get off to the best of starts – not the ‘best of starts’ as defined by Turkish authorities at least; it erupted into an ancient stoning ceremony by Diyarbakirspor fans even before the whistle. This apparently in response to racial prodding from Bursaspor fans earlier in the year. By Sunday, Diyarbakirspor’s stadium has been closed for the remainder of the season. (Merely five games, but ‘remainder of the year’ sounds much more dramatic.)

Violence as the dirty mistress lover of football has never been surprising. What is surprising is that it took 15 minutes for them to call the game when players were being pelted well before kickoff. It’s this type of this which will see ten injured and an assistant linesman pelted in the head with a rock.

Which is precisely what happened. How did they not see this coming?

* – Also: needing a riot team to protect the corner kicks is typically a dead giveaway the game shouldn’t be happening.

What I’d like to know is how this many stones were found and/or allowed inside the stadium? Do they not have a cleaning crew of any sort? Or was it not suspicious when 80 pound pillow cases were being hauled into the stadium? Or, worse, is the stadium breaking apart this easily? If so don’t tell Italy – they’ll never build another stadium if they think there’s worse out there.

Stonings, S.W.A.T. teams, stadium closings, racial slurs, police escorts & abruptly halted matches: just your typical weekend in football.

We’ve poked fun at Blatter’s incompetence, his skeevy old guy and perhaps alluded to (alleged) rampant corruption within the FIFA hierarchy, but it may finally be time to arm the masses with water balloons, shaving cream and big inflatable bats to take the FIFA compound.

After a discussion with hockey – they still play that? – officials, Sepp has gone deep into meditation to ponder scrapping football’s offside rule.