Newcastle say their traveling supporters faced “unacceptable treatment” after Tuesday’s 2-1 defeat at Marseille in their Champions League match. The club accused French police of using pepper spray, batons and shields against fans as they were led away from the Stade Vélodrome.
In a statement, the club said: “We will formally raise our concerns with UEFA, Olympique de Marseille and the French police regarding the unacceptable treatment of our supporters by police at the Stade Vélodrome following Tuesday’s UEFA Champions League match.”
According to the club, fans were held inside the stadium for an hour for what was described as a security measure before being released in groups of 500 and escorted to the subway. Then, Newcastle says, the plan fell apart.
“Once the first group of supporters were released, police began using unnecessary and disproportionate force to prevent the rest of our fans from moving on,” the statement said. “This was done using a combination of pepper spray, batons and shields, with countless supporters being indiscriminately attacked.”
The club also described scenes in the upper concourse where ‘crushing became apparent’, leaving supporters ‘visibly distressed’. The staff attempted to intervene with the police ‘with limited impact’.
If French police crackdowns on English football fans sound familiar, it should. Liverpool fans suffered a police nightmare at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, on the outskirts of Paris, during the 2022 Champions League final. French authorities initially blamed the supporters before independent reviews revealed police failures and dangerous crowd management. Tuesday’s events in Marseille carry uncomfortable echoes.
In a case of déjà vu, French police offered a very different story, saying that a small “crowd wave required the intervention of CRS riot police” and that “one of them made very limited use of tear gas… Apart from this incident, no force was used.”
Newcastle will push for a full investigation “to ensure lessons are learned and this behavior is not repeated”, and have asked fans to submit their accounts. The hope is that, unlike Paris, these lessons are taken seriously before anyone gets hurt.
Contact the author of this story at force.l1764337267laboratory1764337267ofdlr1764337267are1764337267sni@r1764337267etc1764337267w.kci1764337267N1764337267
#Newcastle #files #complaint #Marseille #police #overzealous #crowd #control #World #Football