Birmingham City Fined £20,000 by the FA Cup for Crowd Trouble

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011 at 8:00 am , filed under News by Alex Callos

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Birmingham City have been endorsed and fined £20,000 by the FA Carling Cup for failing to control their crowd during the Carling Cup quarter-final victory against Aston Villa last December.

Birmingham beat bitter local rivals Aston Villa side’s 2-1 in the quarter-final clash at St Andrew’s stadium, but the victory was marred by crowd trouble. More than 1,000 Birmingham supporters attacked the pitch and confronted the 3,800 Villa fans situated in the Gil Merrick Stand at the other end of the stadium.

Birmingham have been fined £40,000, half of which is suspended will hang over the club until the end of the 2013-14 season and given caution against the future conduct of their supporters by an independent regulatory commission.

Blues accepted the charges of failing to ensure no audience or un-authorized persons were permitted to influence on the pitch. They would be invoked with Birmingham to again fall foul of Football Association rule E20b.

The situation occurred, after the final whistle signaled a victory courtesy of Nikola Zigic’s 84th-minute winner, home fans flowed on to the playing field. Seats were also ripped out and used as arms along with other substance.

Riot police had to keep the two sets of fans apart on the pitch, the presence in and around St Andrew’s had been enhanced to nearly 500 police officers for the first midweek meeting between the clubs, as it is a ugly scene in seven years.

On the night of the disturbance, Birmingham City manager Alex McLeish condemned at the time as a throwback to “the dark ages”.

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