Europe Group Also Banning English Soccer

The Union of European Football Assns. on Sunday banned English soccer teams indefinitely from European competition because of the riot at a match last week in Belgium in which 38 people were killed.

The move was unprecedented. The group has banned individual teams in the past for fan disturbances, but it has never banned an entire soccer association.

The ban does not affect teams from other parts of the British Isles--Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. It is similar to a ban imposed last week by the English Football Assn.

The English group’s ban applies for one year, but the ban by its European counterpart is “for an indefinite time,” Jacques Georges, of France, president of the European association, told reporters after an emergency meeting of the group’s executive committee.

A spokesman for the group said that ban could last from three to five years if not longer.

The riot last Wednesday led the Belgian government to place an indefinite ban on all teams, professional and amateur, from all parts of the British Isles from playing in Belgium.

The riot erupted at a match in Brussels when British fans of the Liverpool soccer club invaded a section filled with Italian supporters of Turin’s Juventus team.

Most of the 38 people killed were trampled to death. Hundreds of others were injured.

Georges also said a special committee will consider what action to take against Liverpool and Juventus for the “unprecedented scenes of savagery and barbarism which were witnessed at the Heysel Stadium Wednesday and seen (on television) in around 80 counties throughout the world.”

In Milan, Italy, vandals tossed a flaming bottle at the Cambridge Study Center, a British language school, early Sunday in an incident police linked to the soccer riot. No injuries or damage were reported in the attack.