Three sentenced to community service, one expelled, for fan violence

A court in Brno sentenced four individuals for disorderly conduct at a recent football match, three of them with up to 400 hours of community service. The fourth, a Polish national, was expelled from the country and banned for five years. A fifth person remains to be tried. All of the men, fans of the Ostrava Baník football club, were involved in broader fan violence on Sunday ahead of a Brno-Ostrava match. Police in riot gear had to be called in to gain control of the situation. The recent violence and the introduction of new rules shifting the responsibility for security to individual clubs - from the police - has drawn criticism from the largest opposition party, the Social Democrats. The issue of hooliganism is to be discussed in the lower house next week.