UEFA charges Polish club over Nazi banner at Champions League game

UEFA has charged Legia Warsaw after its fans produced a banner of a Nazi holding a gun to a child’s head at a Champions League qualifier on Wednesday.

Fans of the Polish champions hoisted a tifo the length of an entire stand at the Polish Army Stadium with an image of a Nazi-uniformed figure holding a gun to a crying child’s head on a background of a Polish flag bearing the year 1944.

Underneath were the words: “During the Warsaw Uprising Germans killed 160,000 people. Thousands of them were children.”

The banner commemorated the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, an unsuccessful operation by the Polish resistance Home Army to liberate Warsaw from German occupation during World War II.

It comes after it was reported Thursday that Poland will consider a claim demanding reparations from Germany for the destruction it brought during the Nazi occupation.

UEFA often punishes clubs for political symbols at games and said Legia faces a disciplinary charge relating to the “illicit banner” and another because stairways at its stadium were blocked, AP reported.

It is not the first time a banner at a Legia game has landed the club in hot water. In 2014, the club was fined $82,166 after fans unfurled a banner depicting UEFA as a pig and insinuating the organization was corrupt.

The club has also been fined in the past for fan violence at games.

Despite winning the game against Astana 1-0, Legia was knocked out 3-2 on aggregate and will now play in the Europa League.