Euro 2016 - Croatia Deducted 1 Point But....

[agchristie]

Should the match have been played at all? Is the punishment harsh or lenient?

Over to you....

http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/33643929

[Cloverjo]

A bit unfair on their next opponents that they have to play in an empty stadium. Couldn't they have painted over the swastika before this match started?

[Ken4155]

^^^
Of course they could, Cloverjo. Back in the day when i was a 'boy soldier' at Bramcote Barracks, we were made to paint the grass green where it had been discoloured by being walked on. The reason was that Princess Anne was visiting!

[retrocop]

"My eyes are old I agree but I am blessed if I can see a Swastika painted on the pitch.Is this real ?

[joggerjayne]

But they should also get TWO points added back on, because I'm sure I can see a face of Jesus in the grass ... if I ... look hard enough ...

[Ken4155]

Is he waving, jj, or is he.................no, he isn't is he!!??

[Gromit]

I have never been able to see this marking on the pitch. I have watched on YouTube, and no marking is recognisable. On photos you cannot see it.

So no, no point should have been deducted. It had nothing to do with play, or fans behaviour.

[jno]

even when they point it out it's hard to see

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/hghg1pja1oasqlfec0dj.jpg

[Arksided]

football pitch, I see no football pitch...

[Grandma_Yiddo]

I'm glad that others too cannot see the swastika. What a waste of time.

[agchristie]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2015/07/23/croatia-punished-for-swastika-on-soccer-field/

Whether you can see it is irrelevant. The HNS are not disputing it and are claiming an act of 'sabotage'. Not for the first time that Croatian football has been blighted by Nazism.

[jno]

Whether you can see it is irrelevant

Not exactly - an invisible swastika shouldn't be of concern to anyone. In particular, if you can hardly see it, how can you do anything about it? My guess is that the authorities didn't even notice it - I find it hard to believe they'd see it there and leave it, though I suppose it's possible.

[ichkeria]

A very strange story indeed.
I am sure I remember watching a bit of this game at the time and nothing was mentioned about it.
If the thing is more or less invisible and no one knows how it got there then how can it make sense to deduct a point for one game? Had it gone on being detected then would a point have been deducted for every game?
Not the most contentious local derby of the tournament though, following the trouble at Romania v Hungary and Serbia v Albania
(and Russia Montenegro, tho that not so much of a "derby")

[ichkeria]

"...being undetected"

[agchristie]

The authorities have deemed it as a swastika and that's all that matters. Decisions can be taken retrospectively as regularly happens when other incidents on the field of play have not been spotted at the time....

[ichkeria]

I think the issue I have is with the connection with one particular game, and the consequent point deduction

[agchristie]

Ich, UEFA took a month to decide on this 'four pronged' sanction so they had plenty of time to consider the issue. It looks more like a swastika to me rather than it being nearer the scale of invisibility.

Croatia will still qualify, unless they are ejected as a result of further trangression(s)

[ichkeria]

I have no doubt it is a swastika
That isn't the issue for me as previously stated.
However, none of us probably know enough about this to be able to comment authoritatively (though that applies to most of the threads here i guess :-)

[ichkeria]

...and presumably in answer to the first question, presumably no one spotted it at the time.

[agchristie]

No spectators, fewer people to notice!

[ichkeria]

No one at all noticed it, is what I mean. So therefore it would have been unlikely to have led to the match being called off