You’ve probably heard by now that Russia have been handed a suspended disqualification from EURO 2016 by UEFA.
It means that, if Russian fans cause any more trouble inside the stadium, they will be turfed out of the tournament entirely.
While that might seem like a fairly decent result for England and Wales in Group B, it could actually throw the entire tournament into disarray.
The official rule book for the tournament states that Russia’s results will be declared null and void if they are disqualified.
^ #Euro2016 rule book says "If an association is disqualified during competition, the results of all its matches are declared null and void"
— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) June 14, 2016
What this means is that they effectively never took part in the tournament, which would also strip points away from any team who has won points against them.
In tournaments gone by, this wouldn’t have any effect on any of the other groups in the tournament, and wouldn’t have much of an effect on Group B itself, as it’d just become a threeway shootout for qualification (and England would probably be relieved the result against Russia gets chalked off, seeing as they dropped points).
But in EURO 2016, which has an increased number of teams taking part – and in which it’s possible for the third-placed team in a group to get to the last 16 – it could have many different permutations for the entire tournament.
There are are four possible scenarios at play here, in terms of how the rules are interpreted.
1) Russia are disqualified, their *results* are declared null and void
In this permutation, Group B would become a three-way shootout between Wales, England, and Slovakia. The first and second-placed teams would go through automatically, but the third-placed team, having played one game less than the third-placed teams in other groups, would likely not have enough points to make it out of the group and into the Last 16.
2) Russia are disqualified, their *points* are declared null and void
This would be highly unfair on Wales, who are last to play against Russia. In this scenario, other teams’ points won against Russia would stand, but Russia’s points wouldn’t stand.
This would hugely benefit England, who were first to play Russia, and if Russia get kicked out for violence during their match against Slovakia, could see Wales miss the opportunity to score any points.
This is probably not going to happen.
3) Russia are disqualified, Slovakia, Wales and England each get automatic victories
The reason this couldn’t/shouldn’t happen is because it’d be unfair on all the other teams taking part in the tournament. The teams in Group B would unfairly benefit from the actions of Russian fans.
4) Russia are disqualified, their results/matches are void, and the ENTIRE qualification system changes
This would be one of the fairest way to do things.
Russia get disqualified from the group, and because the teams in Group B only had two opportunities to score points, the results against the bottom-placed teams in all the other groups get discounted, and each group effectively becomes a three-way shoutout.
The four third-placed teams with the best points and goal difference ratios against the top two teams in their group would go through.
Either that, or the third-placed teams go into some sort of round-robin last 16 qualification battle, which could technically happen given the three day break between the group stages and the last 16… and would be great. But probably unlikely.
There’s also a rule in the UEFA handbook which states that, if points and goal difference are equal, it’ll go down to fair play… which is quite literally fair.
Bonus option:
could multiply all group B points and goals by 1.5?
— robot swans (@robotswans) June 14, 2016
A mathematic approach to the problem could be a fair one, but let’s face it – whatever happens here, someone will feel hard done by.
