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Serbia could be expelled from qualifiers

Platini met Serbian president Boris Tadic and told him the national team and domestic clubs would be expelled from Europe if the Balkan country's supporters continued to cause trouble, Tadic's press office said in a statement.

"Michel Platini told Serbia's president it was UEFA's position that the Serbian national team and the country's clubs would be expelled from all European competition if its hooligans continued with their violent and criminal behaviour," it said.

Platini told Croatia's President, Ivo Josipovic, that Croatia had one year to resolve the problem of football violence to avoid being banned from UEFA competitions, state news agency Hina reported.

The Croatian football federation and the country's top clubs have been sanctioned with heavy fines in recent years for fan trouble at home and abroad.

Platini's warning to Serbia follows a history of violence involving Serbian fans, most recently a riot in Genoa last October during the country's Euro 2012 Group C qualifier away to Italy.

Last month the ringleaders of Partizan Belgrade's ultras who beat to death a French fan ahead of the team's Europa League match with Ligue 1 side Toulouse in 2009 received sentences of up to 35 years each in prison.

"We are aware that we have a problem with hooligans in Serbia and we are determined to crush hooliganism," he said.

"We will work closely with UEFA to make sure that incidents like the one in Genoa never happen again, because it was a disgrace for our country in general.

"We want to prove that we are a nation capable of supporting our national teams and clubs in a sportsmanlike spirit, so that sports venues can stop being war zones and once again be safe for parents and their children."

Serbia's next Group C home game is against Northern Ireland in Belgrade on March 25 and they visit Estonia four days later. They are second from bottom of the six-team standings with fo