When I first heard that violence broke out at a West Ham v. Millwall Carling Cup match, my initial reaction was, “Gee, I guess that DVD must be coming out soon.”
But no, this just looked like a couple of old hooligan firms looking to renew acquaintances — and looking to plunge English football right back into the dark ages. There were a couple of pitch invasions, clashes with riot police, two reports of stabbings, and one report that Millwall fans made monkey noises at Carlton Cole, though Inner City Firm leftovers made just as big a mess.
So here’s my question: If you were in charge of the FA, how would you punish West Ham and Millwall for this? Dock them points? That might go the furthest toward forcing the clubs to get this under control, but this didn’t happen in league play, and the Premier League would probably balk. A ban from cup competitions? Some Hammers supporters would probably be happy to skip out on the Carling Cup. Hefty fines? Even given West Ham’s shaky financial position, that doesn’t seem like quite enough.
Here’s my idea: Let’s hunt down the primary instigators and line them up against this guy:
He looks like he’d be more effective than a few of those riot police, doesn’t he?
3 responses so far ↓
1 Jeff // Aug 26, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Here’s a question that Tom kinda touched on in his Sweeper column today – does this affect the UK’s 2018 World Cup bid? Does FIFA get scared a little bit, because after all, these guys will all be rooting for England, and imagine how they’ll deal with a possible England-France game?
And if you’re on the American bid committee, you’re England’s biggest rivals for the ’18 Cup, are you taking every opportunity to rub this event in FIFA’s face, and compare it to the fact that crap like this just doesn’t happen here?
2 a different Dave // Aug 28, 2009 at 5:36 am
USSF is bidding for both 2018 and 2022 just to prove a point, I don’t think they really expect to get 2018; the assumption seems to be that 2018 is pretty much a lock for Europe so if England doesn’t get it it will be some other UEFA country. 2022 seems to me to be the better option for the return of the World Cup to the USA; it will be a 28 year gap since 1994 which sounds about right.
As for docking points…isn’t the Carling Cup just the rebranded League Cup? Isn’t it run by the Football League, not the FA? If so, docking points in the FL/PL might not be a problem. Or maybe it will; I’m not clear on the politics of the thing.
Maybe rather than docking points, have both clubs play a certain number of home games in front of empty terraces? Seems to me it would make more sense to punish the “fans” rather than punish the teams. The players weren’t the ones rioting in this incident.
3 Dave // Aug 28, 2009 at 8:59 am
Every report I’ve seen so far suggests it’s the FA launching the probe, not the Football League.
Plus, with West Ham promising to throw the book at the hooligans, I suspect the worst that will happen to West Ham is that they’ll be fined and kicked out of this year’s Carling Cup — either that, or they’ll have to play some games behind closed doors.
The big political problem here is how to punish the club for the actions of these hooligans. If you don’t fine the club, the hooligans will think they can get away with it, but if you punish the club too severely, are you really punishing the right party? Most of these idiots will still look to rumble regardless of what league West Ham plays in. King Solomon would have to call in advisers for this one.