A Serbian soccer fan, tried for attempted murder after assaulting a plain-clothes police officer with a burning flare during a first division game last December, has been sentenced to 10 years in jail.

The verdict has triggered a nationwide debate among the country’s soccer fans over whether Uros Misic, a 20-year old Red Star Belgrade supporter, has been punished too severely or got exactly what he deserved.

Misic’s 20 or so companions in the courtroom threw verbal assaults at the judicial panel and had to be restrained by security while five of them were detained for questioning as the authorities showed a new level of determination to crack down on what the presiding judge called an epidemic.

Some believe the landmark case may be a turning point in Serbia’s desperate fight against soccer violence. Do draconian punishments deter hooligans from their senseless acts or could they make the problem even worse?

Misic’s Red Star comrades displayed banners of support for him in a league match the day after he was sentenced and chanted his name for the full 90 minutes. 

Serbia has been plagued by soccer-related violence in the past 15 years as a series of bloody conflicts tore the former Yugoslavia apart and resulted in what many analysts saw as a decay in moral and social values.

The first backlash was spiralling madness in stadiums, which the authorities appeared powerless to stop even after several fatalities where the culprits by and large got away unpunished.

A nation crippled by years of isolation and economic mismanagement seemed indifferent until the horrific scenes at Red Star’s ground, when Misic inflicted multiple burns on the policeman’s body before trying to force the flare down his throat.

At the trial, he based his defence on the assumption the victim was a rival fan. In the end, that may have made matters worse for Misic and prompted the judge to throw the book at him. 

Give us your thoughts.   

PHOTO: An injured plain clothes policeman (R) tries to arrest a man during an incident between Red Star Belgrade fans and police in Belgrade Dec. 2, 2007. A policeman was seriously injured when Red Star fans clashed with police during the Serbian first division soccer match against Red Star-Hajduk. REUTERS/Stringer

I guess most if not all fans of Manchester United and Chelsea wish the Champions League final was being played a little closer to home.

The decision to waive visa restrictions should have helped a bit but with flight and hotel prices rocketing an awful lot of fans who would have made the trip to Paris, say, are presumably going to stay at home.

Darren Ennis blogged here recently about the wisdom of awarding the final so far in advance, suggesting that the venue could be taken from a shortlist of candidates once we’ve reached the quarters or the semis, ensuring greater convenience for fans.

If UEFA decides to go that route, it could mean that this year’s final will be the second and last to be held in eastern Europe — at least for a long while to come — with English, Italian and Spanish clubs likely to dominate the latter stages for years to come.

The only other time UEFA has ventured out to eastern Europe for their showpiece final was in 1973 in Belgrade when a famous Ajax Amsterdam outfit led by Johan Cruyff clinched their third successive European crown with a 1-0 win over Juventus, whose number eight was a certain Fabio Capello.

Serbian websites describe the match, played in front of 93,500 fans crammed into Red Star’s stadium, as one of the most memorable sports events held in communist-era Yugoslavia.

The country was outside the iron curtain and those Ajax and Juve faithful who may have made the trip should have found it relatively easy to reach eastern Europe’s window to the west of the 1970s.

Now it’s off to Moscow, which may not be the easiest place to get to for English fans, but at least is original.

Or would you rather have had it at Wembley?

Zoran Milosavljevic, Belgrade

PHOTO: A leaf blower in use on the pitch at Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium, May 2, 2008. REUTERS/Alexander Natruskin