UEFA Reveal Worst-Behaved Fans in Europe in New List
The country with the worst behaved football fans in Europe has been revealed in a newly released UEFA list.
Football supporters have long been criticised for their conduct at matches, with poor behaviour often leading to bans, fans and sanctions for both clubs and national teams.
Each year, European football's governing body, UEFA publishes its fair play ranking, scoring every national association based on some key criteria.
According to UEFA's official rulebook the Fair Play Regulations "aim to foster sporting attitudes and conduct among players, team officials and spectators."
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To produce the rankings, UEFA delegates make an assessment after matches on five articles that are graded between one and ten.
They are: red and yellow cards; respect for opponents; respect for the referee team; behaviour of team officials; and behaviour of spectators.
After every match, the UEFA delegate completes a Fair Play assessment in consultation with the referee.
The results are then averaged out over the 12 months to produce the final score. And this year, the country with the lowest fair play score in Europe was Albania.
In total, 66 matches involving Albanian teams were assessed during the ranking period.
With no Albanian clubs qualifying the group stages of UEFA's three main club competitions, a lot of those games involved the national team.
Albania are in the same qualification group as Serbia for next summer's World Cup.
The fixture is one of the most hotly contested matches in European football, due to the historical and ethnical tensions within the region.
After crowd misconduct during a World Cup qualifier in June, UEFA fined the Albanian FA and ordered a partial stadium closure, with 20% kept empty for their following game.
Close behind Albanian in the ranking were Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
At the other side of the rankings, the Faroe Islands were crowed Europe's best behaved footballing nation.
Despite a population of just over 54,000 people, football is popular in the country, and they still retain a slim chance of qualifying for next summer's World Cup.
Behind the Faroe Islands are Moldova and Kazakhstan, while England also performed well and are in sixth place.
Despite English fans' mixed reputation, UEFA found that they were well behaved across the 241 matches.
During the assessment period, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur reached the Europa League final, while Chelsea went all the way in the Conference League.
Although Thomas Tuchel criticised England fans for being 'silent', UEFA deemed their behaviour to be positive generally.
During England's recent victory over Latvia, supporters could be heard singing: "Thomas Tuchel we'll sing when we want!"
Later in the game, they chanted: "Tuchel give us a song," which drew a smile and a thumbs up from the England boss.
Topics: Football, UEFA, Football News
James Taylor