Sanctions. The key word before tonight’s FIFA 2022 qualifying match between Hungary and England. Both teams played some great football at a recently finished EURO 2020, and England even made it to the finals, but still, football is not the main subject ahead of this match. UEFA investigated the alleged homophobic banners and monkey noises during Hungary’s Euro 2020 group-stage matches in Budapest and Munich. During the match against Portugal, images of a banner among the home supporters that read “ANTI LMBTQ” – a reference to the Hungarian language abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer — circulated on social media. Eventually, UEFA sanctioned Hungary with three match ban.Wembley rn pic.twitter.com/3lXRRvG7d0— Rave Footage 🎥 (@RaveFootage) July 11, 2021 This time, the game will be played in front of 60.000 people, as the qualifiers are organized by FIFA, but even the national team coach Marco Rossi warned the fans that he will side with the opposition players if anything bad happens. “I hope that we will not face these kind of situations tomorrow. But in case it happens we are absolutely on their side, on the side of the English players of course” said the Italian at a press conference.Hungary midfielder Andras Schafer repeated the call from his coach.”Our fans are one of our biggest weapons and as it’s a FIFA competition we start with a clean slate, so we hope it stays like that” said Dunajska Streda midfielder.England coach Gareth Southgate refused to be drawn on what action his players would take if they are abused again. England’s European Championship qualifier in Bulgaria in October 2019 was twice stopped due to racist chanting.”We know the experience we had before in Bulgaria, but we’re going to Hungary preparing for a game against a crowd that will get behind their team and we’re looking forward to the challenge of the match. Everything else is speculation” he said.(8.00) HUNGARY (4.20) ENGLAND (1.48)Off course, England has it’s own disciplinary issue. England could also be fined with a stadium ban for the disgraceful scenes at the Euro 2020 final, which they lost to Italy on penalties. The game was overshadowed by the shocking behavior of thousands of ticketless supporters who tried to force their way into the stadium, causing mayhem. White they wait for the UEFA verdict, England players will continue their stand against racism in Budapest tonight by taking the knee before kick-off, which is expected to be booed by Hungary supporters.“It won’t be unique for them to be booed for taking a knee because that happened at Middlesbrough during the Euros warm-up games. We still don’t know what the outcome of the investigation into our final is going to be and maybe we end up with a stadium ban. We shouldn’t look elsewhere until our own house is in order. While we are always vigilant in preparing our team for whatever they may face, I have always been brought up that when I’m a guest somewhere I show due respect. We have a long way to go ourselves before we start to pre-empt what might happen in a game somewhere else” said Southgate.
