Soccer:A Danish football fan has been ordered to pay €250,000 in damages for attacking a referee during Denmark's Euro 2008 qualifier against Sweden in June 2007. The 33-year-old man must pay the sum to the Danish Football Association (DBU), the High Court in Copenhagen ruled.
The fan had appealed against a 2009 decision by the Copenhagen City Court which had ordered him to pay the €125,000, but the High Court doubled the amount.
"The person in question's acts represent the biggest attack on Danish football's integrity," Jim Stjerne Hansen, secretary-general of the DBU. "His violent assault on the referee cost us an almost spotless reputation within the soccer world and 2.2 million crowns.”
The match in June, 2007, at the Parken stadium in Copenhagen was abandoned in the final minutes when the fan rushed on to the field and tried to hit German referee Herbert Fandel who had just sent off Denmark's Christian Poulsen and awarded the visitors a penalty with the score at 3-3. Uefa later awarded Sweden a 3-0 victory and the defeat meant that Denmark failed to qualify for Euro 2008.
The DBU had sought damages after it was fined by Uefa and Denmark were banned from playing their next two qualifiers at Parken. The court's award was lower than the DBU's claim because the court deemed the number of spectators who would have attended a match against Lichtenstein to be lower than the DBU's estimate.
In 2007, the fan was convicted of attempted assault and trespassing and given a suspended 30-day jail sentence, which was reduced to 20 days on appeal. The fan admitted he was drunk and entered the pitch illegally, but rejected the violence charge.
The Dutch Cup replay, meanwhile, between Ajax and AZ Alkmaar will be watched by a crowd of children only. The original match was abandoned before Christmas after a fan invaded the pitch and attacked Alkmaar keeper Esteban.
Esteban retaliated and was sent off but his red card was rescinded and Ajax were forced to replay the game in an empty stadium.
Ajax last week asked the Dutch football association KNVB) to allow women and children to attend the match but the ruling body decided that only the latter would be permitted because of a national law of comparable treatment for men and women. Tickets will be free for clubs and primary schools with children aged under 13 and one adult will be allowed in to look after every six of them.
