ZURICH, (Reuters) – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru were fined sums ranging between 10,000 and 40,000 Swiss francs ($40,056) yesterday as FIFA continued its clamp down on homophobic chanting by fans in Latin America.
Homophobic chanting at soccer matches is widespread in some Latin American countries, especially when the visiting goalkeeper runs up to take a goal kick, and until recently it was overlooked by soccer authorities.
FIFA has already imposed numerous fines on federations in the region during the 2018 World Cup qualifying competition. The latest bouts of fines concerned matches played last month.
Chile’s federation said last month that it had tried to educate fans but the problem was deep-rooted and needed to be tackled by other parts of society. Mexico’s federation last year staged a campaign urging its supporters to stop homophobic chants.
FIFA also said yesterday that Serbia’s federation was fined a total of 160,000 Swiss francs for crowd trouble at two games.
It said the Serbians were fined 90,000 francs for improper conduct by fans, which included “letting off incendiary devices, political and discriminatory banners and political chants” during the 3-2 defeat by Austria last month.
It was fined a further 70,000 Swiss francs for similar offences in the match against Georgia three days later, which Serbia won 1-0 to qualify for the World Cup.
Austria was fined 10,000 francs and warned for misbehaviour by its fans at the Serbia match.
Bosnia (47,500 Swiss francs), Egypt (20,000 Swiss francs), Estonia (30,000 Swiss francs) and Greece (30,000 Swiss francs) were among other federations to be fined by FIFA. They could not immediately be reached for comment. ($1 = 0.9986 Swiss francs)
