Red Star Belgrade fined and banned from selling away tickets after fans chant war criminal Mladic's name

UEFA has fined Red Star Belgrade €90,000 (£77,000) and barred them from selling tickets to away supporters for their next European fixture after fans chanted in tribute to convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic during a 5-1 Conference League defeat to Czech side Viktoria Plzeň on 27 August.

Visiting Red Star supporters chanted Mladic’s name, performed salutes and unfurled a banner praising him on the same day the former Bosnian Serb military commander died at the age of 84 in The Hague, where he had been serving a life sentence for genocide.

UEFA confirmed the sanctions late on Friday, citing breaches that included inappropriate chanting and “racist and/or discriminatory behaviour.” In addition to the fine, Red Star are prohibited from selling away tickets for their next European match, a Conference League fixture against Swiss club Lugano. A secondary away ticket ban has been deferred subject to a two-year probationary period.

Mladic was convicted in 2017 by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which described his crimes as among the “most heinous” in human history. As commander of Bosnian Serb forces, he directed the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were rounded up, bound and shot over several days. Women and girls were systematically raped. The remains of victims were subsequently bulldozed into mass graves before being exhumed and relocated in an attempt to conceal the scale of the killings.

Earlier this year, Mladic’s legal team had sought his release on humanitarian grounds, arguing he was in a state of “advanced, irreversible medical decline.” A family member confirmed his death to the Associated Press.

The 1991 European champions have a lengthy history of UEFA disciplinary proceedings related to supporter conduct, including previous sanctions for racist chanting targeting Roma people.