Reid enters football violence row

12 April 2012

Home Secretary John Reid has questioned the way Italian and Spanish police handled violent clashes involving English football fans at this week's European matches.

Following the disturbances at Wednesday's game in Rome between Manchester United and Roma, Spurs fans were involved in fresh trouble at Thursday night's Uefa Cup match against Sevilla.

After fans at both games complained at the tactics of the local police, Mr Reid said he would be looking at reports from Scotland Yard as well as from the football authorities and local British consuls.

"I think that anyone who saw some of these incidents would at least have questions to ask about how they were handled, and we have asked those questions," he said in a pooled interview with broadcasters.

Returning Tottenham fans claimed that they had been "indiscriminately" attacked by baton-wielding police dressed in riot gear inside the Sevilla ground.

The trouble erupted less than half-an-hour into the game, in the enclosure housing the 4,000 Spurs supporters, when some clashed with police. Spanish officers arrested six British fans and the trouble left a further six with injuries, three of which needed hospital treatment.

Speaking at Gatwick airport, fans said Thursday night's game was "chaos" from the start.

They claimed they arrived at the ground to find there were no seat numbers and just a tape separated home and away fans.

They insisted police aggression ruined what had been a peaceful build-up to the match as fans from both sides drank together and made their way to the ground.

Riot police were needed to separate both sets of fans outside the Primer Liga Club's ground prior to kick off.

htp://www.homeoffice.gov(Home Office)

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in