South forced to forfeit

James Belias

SOUTH MELBOURNE Football Club is reportedly considering legal action and has been publicly backed by the Victoria Police after being forced to forfeit its forthcoming match against the Melbourne Knights.

Despite wishing to play the potentially troublesome game behind closed doors in a bid to eradicate hooliganism by rival fans, the four-time National Championship club has found itself embroiled in another football scandal as a result of the actions of the Football Federation of Victoria (FFV).

The club, its fans, the Victorian police and rival VPL side the Melbourne Knights must all be baffled at the FFV's decision to award the Melbourne Knights the three VPL championship points after forfeiting the game on South Melbourne's behalf.

The two sides were scheduled to meet yesterday at South's home ground where last season in 2006, South destroyed the Knights 7-0.

Last season's 7-0 goal-fiesta was marred by confrontations between the Police and a group of approximately 50 Knights hooligans following the vandalism of sections of South Melbourne's home ground (the toilets were destroyed).

The hooligans later ran through South Melbourne's social club attempting to start fights prior to being kicked out by the police. No South fans were involved in any altercations.

In 2005 Knights fans broke into Bob Jane Stadium the night before a scheduled VPL match and vandalised large sections of the iconic stadium with white paint, writing racist and inflammatory slogans. South Melbourne received a fine due to the crowd disturbance.

South Melbourne's board and the South Melbourne Police, fearful of putting South fans and property in jeopardy suggested to the FFV to play the game behind closed doors for members only following lengthy consultations.

South is forced to play matches against Preston in the same fashion.

In 2005, the FFV fined South Melbourne $20,000 for crowd trouble against Preston despite the Albert Park club perfectly following the FFV and Police security directives.

South Melbourne Board member George Triantos says the FFV is not doing enough to combat crowd trouble.

"Certain FFV Clubs have forwarded a list of names of known trouble makers to the FFV. However, the FFV have not taken any action to create a database of known trouble makers to counter this problem or try to stamp out this hooligan element."

One of those clubs is believed to be Preston.

The FFV website has falsely stated that South Melbourne forfeited the game, rather than saying that the FFV forced the forfeit upon the club, and a media release posted on the FFV site claimed that "South Melbourne (refused) to agree and adhere to FFV's reasonable directions and requirements."

The FFV is rumoured to have demanded South Melbourne provide and pay for the costs of around 100 police and security staff but offered no financial support to offset the enormous security and police costs that the organisation demanded.

The three points and a 3-0 win have been awarded to the Melbourne Knights, which means they leapfrog South Melbourne in the Foxtel Cup ladder.

South's coach John Anastasiadis has told Neos Kosmos English Edition that he was "very upset" by the decision but feels the club has to "accept it and move on."

"I hope it doesn't affect us. A lot of teams have started of a season at -3 and comeback from that. We just have to take it as a loss and move on," Anastasiadis said.

Meanwhile, the FFV has hinted at further sanctions for South Melbourne.

"It has been mentioned in the final correspondence between the FFV and SMFC that there will be further sanctions levelled at SMFC. The Club at this point in time would prefer not to comment on what these sanctions may be until they are handed down by the FFV Commission," Triantos said.