Myanmar Football’s crowd trouble has once again found them in trouble, as the Asian Football Confederation fined the Myanmar Football Federation US$24,000 (K24million) and threatened that future games will have to be played behind closed doors if trouble rears its head again.
The fine is as a result of a large pitch invasion by spectators after the AFC U-19 Championship quarter-final match on 17th October, between Myanmar and United Arab Emirates at the Thuwunna Youth Training Centre Stadium, in Yangon, said a press release from the AFC.
The release says the punishment is as a result of a “failure to guarantee law and order as well as safety at the venue, improper conduct by spectators and repeated infringements of the [the tournament’s] Code".
The AFC Disciplinary Committee ordered that the team’s next home match should be played without spectators, with the order being suspended for a probationary period of two years.
It Myanmar U-19 had won their semi-final contest with Qatar on 20th October and there had been a repeat of such scenes the final would have been played without spectators.
There were minor scenes of violence at Myanmar’s final group game when they lost 2-0 to Iran on 13th October, also at Thuwunna, when an advertising hoarding was torn down and several seats appeared to have been torn out.
During last December’s Southeast Asian Games, police fired water cannon to disperse rioting Myanmar football fans that tore up seats, burned shirts and hurled stones after their elimination from the tournament.
Myanmar’s senior team were briefly banned from qualification for the 2018 FIFA World Cup following crowd trouble during a July 2011 qualifier for the 2014 World Cup.
They were later reinstated by FIFA but in a statement issued by football’s world governing body; it said that Myanmar “will now be required to play all their home matches in the preliminary competition for the 2018 World Cup on neutral ground in another country."