The Finnish Football Federation is dealing with the throwing of torches and the smoke from the stands in Saturday’s match.
10:05am•Updated 11:21am
The Finnish Football Federation is dealing with the throwing of torches and the smoke from the stands in Kuopio Palloseura’s championship match on Saturday.
The matter will be dealt with as quickly as possible through the normal disciplinary process. The Finnish Football Association’s disciplinary committee will process the events and issue its sanctions in the next few weeks.
During the match, for example, a torch was thrown from the HJK supporters’ stand onto the field and from there back to the supporters’ stand and from there to the sun stand.
Before the match, thick smoke spread from the stands of KuPS supporters to the side of the field as well.
– I consider the events very serious. Now we were on the verge of big risks. I certainly do not greet such behavior with gratitude, states the director of competition operations of the Finnish Football Association Pekka Soini.
It is likely that both clubs will at least be fined as a result of the events. According to Soin, the fines may be thousands of euros. More precisely, he does not want to estimate the amount, because it is decided by the disciplinary committee.
Often, in similar situations, some part of the stand is also closed.
– Now this can be quite difficult or pointless when it was the last match of the season.
Two criminal reports have also been made to the police about the situations.
Competition director: It’s hard to completely eradicate
For years, the Finnish Football Federation has tried, for example, to curb the use of torches with fines.
Soini sees that a lot of work has been done together with the clubs to prevent similar events. He estimates that the work has at least somewhat borne fruit, for example in that the cases have at least not increased.
– This is undeniably a difficult matter. Today’s products are so small that it is difficult to completely eradicate it, Soini admits.
According to him, education is one of the important ways to influence supporters’ activities.