At last at last. Uefa defeated, St Tots Day is here

 

 

• Football supporters are being manipulated by the very people who shold be supporting them
• Arsenal: more club trained English players than any other Premier League club.

By Tony Attwood

“Norwegian club Brann win court ruling over fans’ right to sing ‘Uefa mafia’.”

Now you might well assume that Scandinavian countries are fairly liberal and the notion that an anti-Uefa song could be challenged in the courts is something too outrageous to contemplate.  But not for Uefa.   They have seriously tried to make it illegal for clubs to sing “uefa mafia” at games.

But these Norwegians are not bullied so easily and the Norwegian club Brann have won a freedom of expression case in the Court of Arbitration for Sport that says yes fans can sing “Uefa mafia” and display similar banners at games.  

This all came after the club Brann were twice fined and had a third case making its way through the courts, because of the chant.  The charge was considered an  “offensive statement of a provocative nature.”

The truth of course is that it is Uefa which is an offensive statement, just as Fifa is, over the way it handles both football and football’s funding.”   We might remember that both Michel Platini and Sepp Blatter, have had allegations of corruption against them in terms of their time at Uefa.    And indeed seven then-current FIFA officials were arrested at the Hotel Baur au Lac in Zurich on 27 May. 

In this case the president of Brann, Aslak Sverdrup, said. “It’s not every day a club from Norway moves all of football Europe, but today we actually do. In a world where freedom of speech is under attack, this is an important and correct ruling.”

Perhaps most frightening in this case was that Uefa seriously put forward the view that the Human Rights Act did not apply to a football chant and that since there was no factual evidence present it must be an illegal statement given that Uefa is not a criminal organisation.

I think most of us would distinguish between a chant at a football ground, and the need to check one’s facts first.  If not 99% of anti-opposition and anti-referee chants would be illegal.   But no, Uefa thought it was all very offensive and provocative and must be dealt with.

The court however, being rather sensible, said that context was everything.   There was it implied an issue of human rights in terms of protest and freedom of expression.   Uefa seemed utterly unable to understand the notion that any has freedom other than itself (although that is of course just my interpretation and not somethnig said in court).

Courts in democratic countries do of course like context – and see something said in the privacy of one’s home, and something chanted in a football ground as different from something written as a comment, for example in a newspaper, as being rather different.

Uefa however argued that Freedom of Expression did not apply in football grounds – something we should all note very seriously.  Uefa lost this cost, but it is likely that this view remains their dominant position.   Calling Uefa a mafia-type organisation is for them “offensive and provocative”.

Which then raises the question, how was Uefa provoked by a small number of Norwegian fans in a small stadium chanting an anti-Uefa slogan?   And indeed whatever happened to the issue of freedom of expression?

Indeed the court agreed these are important points, and from now on Uefa has to prove that slogans against it are provocative and offensive.   And since a lot of football supporters feel that Uefa is indeed not a very nice organisation, it is difficult to see how any chant could by itself be provocative.   But I suspect Uefa might have another bash in court at proving all sorts of things are provocative, just to show that they can be easily provoked.

Meanwhile, the other big story that is doing the rounds, although sadly not covered in all the media is the fact that Chelsea’s attempt to sell their women’s team to another organisatioin that Chelsea themselves own, was not accepted by Uefa as a way of boosting Chelsea’s income and thus getting them inside the financial rules.  There’s more on that story here.

Oh yes and St Totteringham’s Day is here.  Quite early it seems.  Points behind 25.  Points available 21.   Oh dear.

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
2	Arsenal	31	17	11	3	56	26	30	62
14	Tottenham Hotspur	31	11	4	16	58	45	13	37