The punishments West Brom could face after crowd trouble against Wolves | OneFootball

Highlights

The return of the Black Country derby this weekend was marred with controversy after a wild brawl between sets of supporters of both West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers erupted in the stands and made its way down to the touchline. The incident saw the game temporarily suspended as police and security fought to bring the situation under control with both sets of players making their way into the changing rooms while everything was settled.

The game was eventually restarted not too long afterwards and Wolves came away with a 2-0 victory. The brawl isn't something that's going to be forgotten in a hurry, though, and it could lead to some serious repercussions for the Baggies, including a potential forced stadium closure for future games. That's one of several possible punishments that the club could be facing, as the Guardian reported that the FA are currently investigating the situation and are considering a variety of sanctions. At the beginning of the 2022/23 campaign, the FA, the Premier League and the EFL all announced plans to crack down on poor supporter behaviour inside grounds and sanction much more serious punishments going forward, so here are a few that could be dealt in the aftermath of the fighting.

Different punishments set out by FA

Section E21 of the FA handbook states that all clubs are responsible for the behaviour of their fans. In their own words, they said that a club must ensure that spectators and/or its supporters (and anyone purporting to be its supporters or followers) conduct themselves in an orderly fashion whilst attending any match. Clubs are ultimately responsible if supporters do any of the following:

Consideration is then paid to the extent to which a club tried to prevent any of the above from happening, the severity of the case, and also if similar incidents have occurred before. Considering the unsavoury scenes at the Hawthorns on Sunday, it's safe to say the severity is certainly going to be factored in.

Section 41 of the FA's handbook also sets out what punishments a club could face in the event of a club failing to follow the FA's guidelines to control supporters. English football's governing body has typically administered one or a combination of three punishments in these scenarios. You can see these below, as well as examples where the FA have stepped in.

Action Plan

One likely punishment would be the FA forcing an action plan onto the club, laying out strict ground rules they must follow for a set period of games following the incident. These would restrict the usual day-to-day activities that take place during a match and one good example of this came following Millwall's meeting with Hull City last year.

After it was determined that the Lions had failed to control fans during their home game against Hull in April 2023, with numerous incidents of offensive and discriminatory language being used, they were dealt the punishment by an independent commission that had conducted an investigation into the situation. Considering the severity of the incident at West Brom, it's easy to imagine that an action plan could be put in place.

Fines

One of the most common punishments dished out in terms of crowd trouble is fines. One very famous example of a team being hit with a fine for being unable to control their fans came during Birmingham City's match against Aston Villa when one of the Blues' fans ran onto the pitch and assaulted Jack Grealish. The Englishman was playing for Villa at the time when he was punched in the face during the game and, as a result of the moment, the fan was sentenced to 14 weeks in prison and the club was fined £42,500.

Another example of a club being fined for their failure to control their supporters came earlier this season when Luton Town faced off against Brighton & Hove Albion in one of their first Premier League matches following their promotion. There were incidents of fans using discriminatory language during the game and the Hatters were fined a whopping £120,000.

Stadium closure

While a fine feels like the most likely outcome of the investigation, earlier this season, Bury became the first English club in decades to be hit with a forced stadium closure after their fans were deemed to have engaged in making discriminatory comments towards players in more than one game.

The Shakers appealed the decision, so the punishment has been suspended until a final decision is made, and the FA handbook says that punishments such as stadium closures are only really considered for second offences, but there's a chance that West Brom may be hit with a similar punishment due to the severity of the incident at the Hawthorns.

Overseas, partial stadium closures have been enforced recently, following incidents of racial abuse. One major example came after Vinicius Jr was racially abused by Valencia fans during a La Liga match at the end of last season and the Spanish club were forced to close parts of their stadium for five games. More recently, Lazio fans were found guilty of racially abusing Romelu Lukaku earlier this month during a match between Lazio and AS Roma and, as a result, they were also hit with a partial stadium closure for their Serie A game against Napoli on January 28.

The threat of a stadium might be a real possibility, with FA chair Debbie Hewitt speaking about the governing body taking a tougher stance on crowd disorder in June 2022. Describing trouble in stands during the 2021/22 season as 'disturbing', Hewitt emphasised that they were looking to address the issue.

That subsequently led to the Premier League, FA and EFL introducing stronger sanctions in July 2022 to combat discriminatory behaviour. Shortly after the brawl broke out between West Brom and Wolves fans, the FA released a statement sharing their thoughts on what had occurred and revealing how they planned to deal with it.

It remains to be seen how long the investigation will take to conduct, but considering how serious the incident was, it feels pretty safe to assume things will be dealt with as swiftly as possible.

West Brom release statement about incident

In terms of West Brom themselves, they've also recently released a formal statement addressing what happened on Sunday. While the FA conduct its investigation, the Baggies also plan to hand out any punishment to any fans they find who were involved in the brawl. They also acknowledged the FA's investigation and pledged to co-operate fully.