Spurs fined nearly £12k for Europa League pitch invasions

In Spurs' last home Europa League match against Partizan Belgrade, play was interrupted three times by pitch invaders, resulting in a temporary halting of play after the referees determined that the players might be in danger. As expected, today Tottenham Hotspur were fined nearly £12,000 by UEFA for the infractions.

Tottenham have been fined £11,870 by Uefa for multiple pitch invasions during their Europa League match against Partizan Belgrade.

— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) December 11, 2014

It turned out that all three invaders were part of a YouTube prank team that was there for shameless self-promotion. All three were wearing individual soccer kits that featured one of Spurs' merchandise sponsors on the front. While the pranksters were also funded in part by the same sponsors, there's still no indication that the sponsor in question had anything directly to do with the invasions.

On the one hand, this is a ridiculous fine considering that this was a social media prank and nothing the club had any control over. On the other hand, it is the job of the Tottenham Hotspur stewards to prevent these kinds of things from happening, and they failed to keep these jerks off the pitch three times. It was a dumb prank, and the worst thing that happened was that they took some dumb selfies and one of them managed to have his shirt ripped off, but they could've been dangerous individuals with a knife or a weapon of some sort.

So I'm of two minds. It's a dumb situation, but it also could've been dangerous. At this point we probably should just be glad that it was only a pretty trivial amount of money and that Spurs weren't forced to play their final match behind closed doors. And maybe this was the kick in the pants needed to tighten up match security for future games, so nothing like this happens again.