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UEFA has opened disciplinary proceedings against Serbian club Crvena Zvezda after supporters displayed a banner honoring convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic during a Europa League match, The Athletic reported on Friday.
The Belgrade-based club, also known as Red Star, posted images on its official social media accounts showing supporters holding a banner during Thursday's UEFA Europa League playoff second leg against Viktoria Plzen in Czechia.
The banner read "General, eternal glory and thanks." Supporters were also heard chanting Mladic's name during the match.
European football's governing body said the case involves conduct deemed racist or discriminatory, as well as a message unsuitable for a sporting event. The club also faces a charge of improper conduct of the team over match discipline after receiving seven yellow cards and one red card.
Mladic, widely known as the "Butcher of Bosnia," died Thursday at age 84 while serving a life sentence in The Hague. In June 2021, the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals upheld his life sentence for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War.
More than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed in Srebrenica in July 1995, a massacre recognized as genocide by international courts.
Earlier Friday, the Srebrenica Memorial Center said it had filed an official complaint with UEFA over the banner and the club's publication of the images on its official channels.
"A club that consciously uses its official communication channels to spread messages that glorify a man legally convicted of genocide cannot reduce such behavior to the behavior of fans.
This is no longer just a question of the stand but of the club's institutional relationship to the values on which UEFA bases European football," the center said.
Crvena Zvezda were previously sanctioned over supporters' tributes to Mladic during a Europa League match against BATE Borisov in November 2017.
Supporters chanted Mladic's name and displayed a banner backing him during the goalless draw in Belarus, one day after a UN tribunal sentenced him to life imprisonment for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
In January 2018, the UEFA Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body ordered Crvena Zvezda to play the home leg of their Europa League last-32 tie against CSKA Moscow behind closed doors and fined the club €50,000 ($58,300).
After an appeal, UEFA deferred the stadium ban and placed the club under a two-year probationary period and reduced the fine to €30,000 ($35,000).
According to the Memorial Center, UEFA concluded in the earlier case that glorifying Mladic represented not only support for an individual but also a message insulting victims on ethnic and religious grounds.
The center said the latest case is more serious because Crvena Zvezda amplified the messages by publishing them through its official communication channels.
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