Each year, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) awards three Fair Play awards to footballing nations across Europe. The fans of the Faroe Islands football team have been awarded one of these prizes for being the best football spectators in 2018.
“This is a big honour that we’re immensely proud and pleased to have received,” says Virgar Hvidbro, Secretary General of the Faroese Football Association (FSF). “A massive ‘Thank you!’ to our amazing fans. This award is theirs.”
The three awards include an overall fair play award, best season-on-season overall fair play score progression and spectator behaviour, with each association being scored and an association being declared the winner for each category.
Teams are judged on criteria that includes yellow and red cards, respect to the opponent, respect to the referee and behaviour of the fans. Racism, the use of fireworks and other types of disturbing behaviour is penalised by point deductions.
All representative teams from a football association are responsible for the score of the Fair Play ranking of that association. This includes matches of all national teams and all clubs in all UEFA competitions.
No association can win more than one category, meaning that on receiving one category award, an association becomes ineligible to win either of the other two, with the three categories being ranked in importance so that it can be determined which category takes preference.
Finland finished first in the spectator behaviour category, but because they also won the overall fair play award, the spectator behaviour prize went to the second placed nation, which was the Faroe Islands.
Winning associations are awarded prize money to allocate to fair play or respect-themed projects in their respective countries.
This article was originally published on Faroeislands.fo
Words: Levi Hanssen
Image credits: Jeppe Michael Jensen/Faroeislands.fo
