In the aftermath of the Euro 2016 fan violence between supporters of the Russian and English teams, moments ago UEFA announced that it has given Russia a suspended disqualification from the tournament, which means the Russian team will be expelled from the tournament in case of repeated violence. The Russian soccer federation will also be fined €150,000.

#BREAKING Football: Russia given 'suspended disqualification' from Euro 2016 over crowd trouble — AFP news agency (@AFP) June 14, 2016

Oddly enough, as the NYT's Sam Borden reports, England, whose fans were also involved in the altrecation, is not punished and was not investigated because "UEFA saw English fans as victims in the in-stadium violence." In other words, this may be the first time in soccer hooliganism history when English fans were on the receiving end. This punishment came from UEFA Disciplinary Comm. UEFA Executive Committee, a different body, can still punish further.

The silver lining for Russian fans: the threat of DQ is related to any more incidents "inside the stadium." Fighting on streets doesn't count.

As Borden notes, "the acid test is this: If one flare goes off in the Russian section tomorrow v Slovakia, is Russia bounced?" The answer: most likely yes, as UEFA clearly wants to send a message to not just football holligans, but also to Russia.

More importantly, at this point, these incidents, and even an ejection, have no bearing on Russia hosting the World Cup in 2018 as UEFA isn't FIFA, which may also explain the bias in favor of UK fans.

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Meanwhile, in what may be an extreme sign of keeping up with self-incriminating technology, the Talking Baws blog reports that a Russian hooligan wore a GoPro camera as he went on a rampage around Marseille and went on to publish footage of violent attacks on English fans. The video was published on YouTube earlier today and gives further insight into the unsavoury scenes which marred the first few days of Euro 2016.

It appears that the camera is strapped to his chest and drops down to face his feet for the majority of the recording while he runs around the streets of Marseille with hundreds of fellow Russian hooligans looking for English supporters. At several points the man can be seen attacking men on the ground and regularly throws objects at those he’s attacking.

What makes it particularly surprising is the way the hooligans run their way through several battles looking for their next target and at no point throughout the six-minute video do they run into French police.



