Crowd Violence at Manchester United-Roma Match

By: Bob | April 4th, 2007

Heading into Wednesday’s Champions League match between Manchester United and AS Roma there was much talk about how the English club warned its fans to avoid certain parts of Rome. There haven’t been any reports of violence on the streets but as you can see in the video above there was some trouble inside. Unless you were there you probably can’t say who is to blame and who caused the problems, but one thing is clear is that is a sad sight watching a policeman knocking the snot out of an older man lying on the ground. On a day when Catania’s stadium ban was lifted it is especially terrible to see something like this happen.

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Category: Champions League, World Football

Tags: As Roma, Champions League, Crowd Violence, Manchester United, World Football, World Soccer

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• Peter |  April 4th, 2007 at 4:02 pm

  
  
  

  Pathetic. Predictable and pathetic.

  Posted from United States

  

• David |  April 4th, 2007 at 4:13 pm

  
  
  

  To think, the team won and there still was violence. What else can they do, this not something that speaks well for Italian soccer as the fans and police continue to battle. It is events like this that put a damper on such a beautiful sport and cause people to give up hope.

  This is a sport of courage, and what we saw in that video was cowardice on both the fans and police side. They should let their emotions stay with the game and not stupidity like that.

  Posted from United States

  

• Brian |  April 4th, 2007 at 4:37 pm

  
  
  

  I believe those were Man U fans getting beat down during the half after they tried to rush the AS Roma fans who were inciting them.

  Posted from United States

  

• Martha |  April 4th, 2007 at 6:04 pm

  
  
  

  I think Brian’s right — the problems came at the half between the fans, and then the police stepped in and, apparently, beat the hell out of some encroaching Man U fans. (There’s a story about it here.

  Posted from United States

  

• Sam |  April 4th, 2007 at 7:12 pm

  
  
  

  The fans have to do something extremely bad to deserve that treatment. Sad thing is, they probably didn’t. Fucking cops.

  Posted from Canada

  

• Matt |  April 4th, 2007 at 8:12 pm

  
  
  

  They are Man U fans. The Roma fans were taunting them and the police rushed the visiting fans only. Both sides were banging on the barrier.

  Posted from United States

  

• Allen |  April 4th, 2007 at 9:22 pm

  
  
  

  The BBC radio on the way home tonight was reporting that a ManUtd fan was stabbed outside the stadium. Other reports say that the riot police were ONLY stationed on the ManUtd side of the barrier. It wouldn’t be surprising. For years if not decades the ultras have had a some weird power over their clubs. To me what happened today shows that it’s time for UEFA to freeze Italian clubs out of Europe until they pull their heads out of their asses. They’ve done little to actually address the violence. And as for the corruption, the Italian FA wasn’t the one wanting to do anything, it was the Italian government that had to step in on that one.

  Posted from United States

  

• Ahmed Bilal |  April 4th, 2007 at 9:37 pm

  
  
  

  I’ve got more info on this on soccerlens.com - by the way, there WAS trouble outside the stadium before the game as 5 people were injured (3 English, 1 Italian and a policeman).

  Apparently after the first Roma goal the Roma fans pushed against the glass divider and and started taunting the fans. United fans (idiots) started throwing things over the dividers. The riot police (which was only stationed at the United side) clashed with the United fans, leading to the beat down.

  Being a United fan it’s hard to admit that our fans were stupid to react that way, but it’s also hard to see police beating up fans when they could have dealt with it in a much better way.

  Shades of Lille in this, and both clubs will probably get fined and keep blaming each other.

  Posted from Singapore

  

• David |  April 5th, 2007 at 8:39 am

  
  
  

  Here is an article about a few of the ManU fans from BBC:

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/6528597.stm

  Posted from United States

  

• Blob |  April 5th, 2007 at 9:42 am

  
  
  

  It’s not a coincidence that everytime you hear about violence at a world cup, euro or champions league match it always somehow involves English supporters. This is not new, it’s almost inevitable. I’m interested to see what happens in O.T. next week. Besides the violence, which was expected, the match itself was very good.

  Posted from Canada

  

• Murillo Cruz |  April 6th, 2007 at 8:57 pm

  
  
  

  English fans are violent, drunken, ignorant trouble makers. There is only one way to deal with them. Good to know there are outstanding police in this world protecting civilized human beings.

  Posted from Canada

  

• Mike Hislop |  April 10th, 2007 at 11:44 am

  
  
  

  You are from Canada you do not see any trouble at English games anymore because the police and stewards know how to control crowds. If you believe everything you read then go and stick your head in the sand. And also talk about something you know about like ????? I dont really know

  Posted from United States

  

• jack |  April 25th, 2007 at 5:22 am

  
  
  

  they might ov twated us then but we twated roma bk at old trafford 7-1 hahah

  Posted from United Kingdom

  

• It Still Seems that Soccer = Violence in Italy | Italy Travel Guide |  December 26th, 2007 at 3:54 pm | Pingback

  
  
  

  [...] You be the judge. [...]

  Posted from United States

  

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