The Southeast Asian Football Federation (AFF) recently issued a fine against the Thai Football Federation (FAT) for letting fans light flares during the match in the group stage of the AFF Cup 2022.
Thai football suddenly received a penalty of nearly half a billion from AFF
Siam Sport recently reported that AFF had issued a fine against FAT for letting spectators attend the match between Thailand and the Philippines in the group stage of the AFF Cup 2022 to set off flares on Thammasat Stadium. This is the match where coach Mano Polking’s army won 4-0 against the Philippines.
According to the press of the Golden Temple, the amount of money that FAT must pay a fine of up to 700 thousand baht (equivalent to 480 million VND). The newspaper also said that this is a fairly light and fortunate penalty for them when the penalty is issued by the AFF, not the AFC.
The reason is because in the past, Thailand twice violated the regulation of lighting flares and was punished by the AFC. At that time, FAT paid a fine of 363 thousand baht (more than 200 million VND) after fans lit flares during the match of U16 Thailand against U16 Malaysia in the qualifying round of the Asian U16 tournament in 2014.
Two years later, FAT continued to have to pay a fine for the same behavior in the match between Thailand and Indonesia in the 2016 AFF Cup. The fine was given a higher amount of more than 1 million baht (more than 685 million VND).
However, despite the fact that FAT constantly has to pay fines, a group of extremist fans named “Ultra Thailand” still insists that they will continue to light flares because they think it is a passionate act of cheering, not a crime.
This group even confirmed that they will continue to light flares to cheer the home team: “We have been cheering for Thai teams this way for a long time. We are not criminals. So are the flares. It just adds color to the game. At the end of the game, we also went home politely.”