Aston Villa has launched a complaint to UEFA regarding Legia Warsaw’s behaviour during Thursday evening’s Conference League game.
Legia supporters were barred from entering Villa Park following what West Midlands Police described as “disgusting and highly dangerous scenes” outside of the stadium.
West Midlands Police made 46 arrests for a variety of offences, including violent disorder and assaulting police officers. A further statement was issued on Friday, confirming one police officer’s jacket caught fire after they were hit with a flare. The officer was taken to hospital with smoke inhalation but is not seriously injured.
Villa submitted an official complaint to UEFA, which has launched an investigation into Thursday night, on Friday, having informed Legia that the UK’s relevant safety authorities had decided to reduce their agreed 1,700 ticket allocation to 1,000 on November 2.
Legia responded with a statement of their own on Saturday, accusing Villa of breaching UEFA rules “multiple times” and say none of the individuals detained by the police had tickets for the match. The Polish club “strongly object” to being blamed for the violence on Thursday night and say they are “prepared to present further evidence to UEFA regarding the actions of the British Police and Aston Villa F.C”.
Chris Heck, president of business operations at Villa, said on Friday: “The lack of cooperation and prevarication from Legia Warsaw officials prior to the match was entirely unacceptable and deeply disappointing. This behaviour increased the danger that West Midlands Police officers and our own fans were subjected to before the game and the scenes of disorder from the Legia fans have no place in modern football or civilised society.
“Aston Villa will be making further representations to UEFA in order to ensure that other clubs and police forces across Europe are not exposed to similar serious safety risks at the hands of Legia Warsaw.
“We are immensely grateful to West Midlands Police for keeping our supporters and our local community safe last night and are pleased that they will also be making their own representations via the UK police authorities to UEFA.”
Villa say Legia were told on November 2 of the reduction following ugly scenes before the match with Dutch side AZ, where riots broke out and supporters left hundreds of bad reviews on local businesses’ websites. The Premier League club believe Legia failed to communicate with its supporters, which was regarded by them and UEFA as ample time to avoid the additional thousand of ticketless supporters travelling.
Villa raised further concerns on Wednesday with a 10.30am GMT meeting between officials from both clubs and UEFA on matchday (Thursday) taking place. During that meeting, Villa say, Legia confirmed they did not know at the time whether they were going to accept their ticket allocation, citing they did not want to leave any ticketless fans who had made the journey behind.
In a club statement released on Thursday evening, before kick-off, Legia insisted the proposal of 1,700 supporters attending was officially accepted and duly documented in the UEFA delegate’s report. This, however, was revised on November 2 by the Safety Advisory Group (SAG).
The Legia statement read: “Rather than defuse potential pre-match tensions as the host club, they unnecessarily exacerbate the atmosphere. In our opinion, such measures are counterproductive and baseless.”
“The UK authorities’ decision to reduce the ticket allocation sparked increasing fury among Legia fans this week. Despite a smaller quota, it is understood around 1,000 additional ticketless supporters travelled from Warsaw to Birmingham.”
(Photo: James Baylis – AMA/Getty Images)
Read the full article here