Not only have world champions been sanctioned

Following the 2022 World Cup results, the FIFA Disciplinary Committee made decisions on five associations: Mexico, Ecuador, Serbia, Croatia, and Argentina received or will receive punishments for various violations.

Ecuador

The Ecuadorian association received a fine of 20,000 Swiss francs. It will also be forced to close the podium outside the goal in the next match due to discriminatory chants during the World Cup opening match. Ecuadorians poked fun at Chilean fans who wanted to take their national team's place in the tournament after sanctioning an investigation that Ecuadorian international Byron Castillo was Colombian.

Mexico

FIFA punished Mexicans more seriously: the association received a fine of 100 thousand Swiss francs and one match without spectators for insulting chants from the stands during games with Poland and Saudi Arabia. The Mexican national team fans called the goalkeepers of both rivals "puto", which means "male prostitute." The Mexican association has already been sanctioned more than once for homophobic chants, but the fans do not care. True, now the fans will have to miss the match with Jamaica in the CONCACAF Nations League, which will take place on March 25.

Serbia

The FIFA Disciplinary Committee imposed a fine of 50,000 Swiss francs on the Serbian Football Association. Also, it punished it with a partial closure of the stadium (25% of the capacity - a stand outside the goal) at the next official match immediately for violating two articles of the code: discrimination and inappropriate behavior of players and officials persons.

This echoes the match between the Serbs and Switzerland when the fans insulted Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri and told who Kosovo was, and the players fought with rivals and sent them to hell. In that match, each side was good - one provoked, the other was led to these provocations - but only Serbia received punishment: FIFA did not seem to notice the violations by Switzerland.

Croatia

There is no punishment yet - the FIFA disciplinary committee only filed a case against the Croatian association for violating articles 13 (Discrimination) and 16 (Order and safety at matches) during the meeting for third place with the Moroccan national team.

Argentina

The champions got the most - they faced punishment under three articles at once:

-aggressive behavior and violation of the principles of fair play,
-misconduct of players and match officials,
-breaches of the regulations regarding the provisions on the media and marketing of the World Cup.

The Associated Press writes that one of the punishments stemmed from the fact that, approximately three hours after the match ended, a group of players led by Lionel Messi "ran songs through the official mixed area, breaking fragile partitions and not stopping to perform in front of international broadcasters and print media."

Argentina can also get it for Amy Martinez, who, during the award, made a not-very-decent gesture with a golden glove and, in the locker room, called on everyone to arrange a moment of silence in memory of Kylian Mbappe.

Earlier, FIFA announced that it would investigate how celebrity chef Nusret Gökçe, also known as Salt bae, entered the pitch during the celebrations among many other people who were not supposed to be there. But for this, most likely, FIFA will no longer punish Argentina.

15.01.2023