On this day in 2010, Italy’s Euro 2012 qualifier against Serbia at Genoa’s Luigi Ferraris Stadium was abandoned after seven minutes due to rioting by Serbian hooligans.
Kick-off had already been delayed by more than 30 minutes because of trouble involving fans both inside and outside the stadium.
Inside the ground, before kick-off, a Serbian hooligan wearing a black balaclava climbed onto the tall plexiglass fence at the front of the away stand, used a wire cutter to slice apart a protective net and threw flares towards the north stand, where Italian supporters were seated.
The masked hooligan was Ivan Bogdanov, one of the leading members of Crvena Zvezda’s Ultra Boys hooligan group.
Bogdanov then burned an Albanian flag, threw another flare into the north stand and began encouraging other Serbian fans to join in, while police lined up in front of the Serbian end in an attempt to bring the situation under control.
Several visiting Serbian fans also tried to break the plexiglass fence separating the home and away sections.
When the match finally got underway, Serbian fans began throwing flares onto the pitch, prompting Scottish referee Craig Thomson to stop play with the score at 0-0.
The match was eventually abandoned, and Italy were later awarded a 3-0 win.
Clashes between Serbian fans and Italian police broke out outside the Luigi Ferraris Stadium soon after the match was abandoned.
Sixteen people, including two cops, were injured, while 17 people were arrested.
Ivan Bogdanov, the instigator of the rioting, was among those arrested.
He was held in an Italian prison for several months before being transferred to Serbia, where he faced another prison sentence for a separate incident. Nearly two and a half years after the match in Italy, he was finally released from prison.
