Europa League: Marseille-Galatasaray Encounter Halted After Rivals Fans clash

Disruption to the Marseille vs. Galatasaray Europa League match at Stade Velodrome caused by fans throwing flares and firecrackers at each other lasted for roughly 10 minutes.

Thursday’s match ended in a scoreless draw, but fighting continued among rival fans for at least 30 minutes after the final whistle blew. Further Football-Related Headlines

Europa League: Marseille-Galatasaray Encounter Halted After Rivals Fans clash

Late in the first half, items were hurled in both ways, despite a heightened security presence and a buffer zone between the about 2,500 visiting fans and the Marseille supporters.

Official Pawel Raczkowski called a timeout, and the police were called in to restore order.

Both Galatasaray head coach Fatih Terim and Marseille captain Dimitri Payet rushed over to their respective fan bases to try to diffuse the situation.

The match picked back up with around eight minutes left in the first half, with the sound of firecrackers still going off in the background.

UEFA Blamed Fake Tickets For The Incident

The UEFA, the governing body of soccer in Europe, blamed counterfeit tickets for the problem and promised to look into it together.

With the French government and the French Football Federation. British Ambassador to France Menna Rawlings praised UEFA’s comments.

A statement from Liverpool FC read: “We are extremely dissatisfied with the security breach and problems in entering the stadium that Liverpool fans experienced.

We have formally demanded that the root causes of these intolerable problems be investigated.”

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin tweeted that “British supporters” were to blame, a word he placed in quotation marks to emphasise the point.

Conclusion

In spite of the score being tied 0-0, there were still small groups of opposing fans fighting inside the stadium well over 30 minutes after the final whistle.

Fans on both sides were seen lighting flares and singing outside the stadium in the southern French city in videos shared on social media before the game.

Before halftime, tensions inside the Stade Vélodrome reached a boiling point as the booming sound of firecrackers echoed throughout the 67,394-person capacity stadium.

Despite a larger security presence and a buffer zone placed between opposing fans, objects were hurled in both directions.