Bendtner showing his underpants was fined higher by Uefa than fans’ racism towards Mario Balotelli
WARSAW, Poland ● The BBC reports that Rio Ferdinand and Vincent Kompany have criticised Uefa after Croatia’s £64,561 fine for racism.
Croatia’s punishment for fans’ abuse of Mario Balotelli was more than £15,000 less than Nicklas Bendtner’s £80,000 fine for revealing sponsored pants .
Manchester City captain Kompany called on Uefa to “review their priorities.”
Manchester United’s Ferdinand tweeted: “Uefa are you for real? £80,000 fine for Bendtner. All of the racism fines together don’t even add up to that?!”
And he continued: “Uefa are not serious. (Uefa president Michel) Platini was a great player but him and his colleagues alienate themselves with exactly this type of rubbish.”
Kompany tweeted: “Racist chants 80k fine. Commercial stunt 100k fine plus one-match ban. Uefa might need to review their order of priorities, don’t you think?
“Surely if you were a sponsor, you would consider racism as a more dangerous association than the damage caused by commercial opportunism?”
As well as Croatia’s penalty, alleged racist chanting in the Spain-Italy and Russia-Czech Republic games is also subject to investigations.
Germany’s football federation has been charged over the “improper conduct” of fans after observers from anti-discrimination group Fare reported seeing a neo-Nazi banner in the Germany section in the 1-0 win over Denmark.
A Uefa spokesman said: “It is up to the disciplinary committee to decide on the sanctions (in each individual case) and the written reasons (for Bendtner’s punishment) are being sent to the Danish FA.”
Before the tournament Uefa president Michel Platini rejected suggestions that Euro 2012 would be overshadowed by instances of racism after a BBC Panorama programme highlighted racism incidents at grounds in Poland and Ukraine.