English court imposes five-year stadium ban on YB fans
Keystone-SDA
An English court in Birmingham has sentenced three supporters of Bernese football club Young Boys (YB) to a five-year stadium ban. They must also pay fines totalling the equivalent of CHF1,700 ($2,100).
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This was announced on Monday at the request of the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA. Previously, a 36-year-old YB fan had already been sentenced to two months in prison. The background to this is the riots at Aston Villa’s stadium during last week’s Europa League match.
After the 36-year-old, three other men, aged 18, 24 and 38, appeared before Birmingham Magistrates’ Court on Saturday. They were released from custody after the hearing, the court announced.
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The so-called Football Banning Order (FBO) is a type of official stadium ban that is not imposed by a club but by the court at the request of the police or public prosecutor’s office. It prohibits a person from attending certain football matches or being in the vicinity of the stadium.
The FBO is applied if someone has been involved in violence or unrest or if there is a risk that they could do so in the future. The court in Birmingham also referred to this passage in its judgement.
A total of eight Bern fans were arrested. It is not known whether charges were brought in four cases. According to the police, YB fans attacked a police officer and threw stadium seats, beer cups and coins in the direction of opposing players and security staff.
YB announced after the match that it wanted to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the events.
Translated from German by DeepL/ts
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