The landmark verdict handed a total of 240 years to 14 Partizan Belgrade fans for beating up Brice Taton, who died in hospital 12 days after he was clubbed with bats, iron bars and flares before being thrown off a wall.
Two of them, Djordje Prelic and Dejan Puzigaca, are still on the run but were sentenced to 35 and 32 years respectively after being tried in absentia by the Belgrade Senior Court.
Slobodan Ruzic, the lawyer of Taton's parents who attended the nine-month long trial and the sentencing, said they were satisfied with the verdict.
"The parents maintain that the punishment fits the crime and we hope that any appeal will be rejected by the court," Ruzic told reporters.
"It should never have come to this and the Serbian authorities are also responsible for not cracking down on soccer violence sooner," he added.
Serbian football has been tarnished by violence in the last 20 years coinciding with political strife in the former Yugoslavia, which resulted in the communist country's bloody break-up.
Partizan were thrown out of the Europa League's predecessor, the UEFA Cup, in 2007 after their fans rioted in neighbouring Bosnia while a Red Star fan was sentenced to 10 years in prison the following year for attacking a policeman with a flare.
"I can say with a clear conscience that politics has defeated justice in this case and threw it out the window and the verdict is nothing short of scandalous," Svetozar Vujacic told reporters.
"The evidence presented by the prosecution was at best circumstantial and even the judge had a problem explaining her own verdict.
"But we expected this because there was a lot of political pressure in this trial after the government vowed to crack down on football violence, hence we have some level of understanding for the judicial council," he said.
