Tottenham pitch invaders fined and banned from football for three years

The idiots who rushed the pitch in Tottenham Hotspur's Europa League match against Partizan Belgrade last month had their day in court and won't be attending any more football matches for a while, according to the Guardian. Each of the three men were fined £155 and are banned from attending any football matches in England and Wales until 2018

The three men, according to court documents, indicated that they were working outside White Hart Lane before the match handing out materials on behalf of Tottenham Hotspur sponsor BassBuds. The men received free tickets to the match as part of their work. The decision to invade the pitch was supposedly not made as part of their work for BassBuds, but was instead made on their own. The sponsor has vehemently denied any involvement in the pitch invasions.

The Guardian article doesn't mention it, but the invasions were apparently made as part of YouTube prank by Trollstation, an online hidden camera prank channel that the three men were also involved with. As in previous articles on this story, I'm not linking to Trollstation as I don't wish to condone any of this mostly unfunny prankster-style reality comedy. If you're dying to see the Trollstation video about the invasions, Google it.

The men said they were "ashamed" of their behavior, which is in stark contrast to their mugging and attitudes while running around on the pitch. While justice has now apparently been done, it's not hard to feel a little put out by the nature of the fines. £155 is not a lot of money considering Tottenham was fined €15k by UEFA for their actions. I'm also not convinced how enforceable these "stadium bans" are in practicality.

Considering they forced officials to remove the players from the field, interrupted play three times, and cost the club a huge amount of money all so they could get a few clicks on YouTube, I'm pretty irritated that these morons got off as easy as they did. The system works, I guess.