According to national reports, there were clashes in the Stade Velodrome stadium after England’s 1-1 draw with Russia on Saturday night, after Russian fans appeared to rush at the England supporters.
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Switzerland 1, Albania 0 Fabian Schaer headed Switzerland’s victor after just five minutes of a game that made a slice of European Championship history. UEFA will judge the case on Tuesday.
A UEFA spokesman said more security personnel would be deployed to segregate rival fans inside stadiums, particularly at high risk matches such as Sunday’s Turkey-Croatia fixture in Paris.
“The Russian fans were told to stay in their seats after the game so that might have had something to do with it, because they wanted to get out of the stadium”.
The clashes – which also included flares and firecrackers – followed three days of trouble in Marseille between a mixture of French police and supporters of various nations.
European football’s governing body Uefa, which runs the tournament, immediately announced it would open disciplinary proceedings.
Saturday’s game was Russia’s first to be organized by UEFA since the lifting of probationary sanctions that were threatened after violent disorder by its fans in Poland four years ago. “People engaging in such violent acts have no place in football”.
“A decision on the sanctions to be imposed will be made within the next few days, once the RFU has been able to submit written statements and evidence”, UEFA said.
It said it welcomed UEFA’s launching of an investigation into the violence at the stadium, and had offered to send additional British police to France ahead of England’s next match, against Wales in Lens.
“It was very tense, the police seemed all too ready to use tear gas but England fans didn’t help themselves”, he said. “We condemn the violence and urge calm on all sides”.
After the worst scenes at an worldwide tournament since the 1998 World Cup, fears of new violence ran high hours ahead of the Turkey-Croatia game in Paris, which organisers have also classed as high-risk.
Hundreds of fans charging through streets holding chairs above their heads ready to throw and bloodied, bare-chested men brawling with police – football’s plague of violence has returned with a vengeance in France. “Consular following closely with French authorities”.
Police in the Mediterranean port city fired tear gas and water cannons at fighting supporters in a largely unsuccessful attempt to rein in trouble that authorities said left at least five people injured.
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Local police chief Laurent Nunez told AFP news agency: “Police intervened in a clash between English, Russian and French supporters in the Vieux Port district”. Since then, violence has tended to be confined to the football stadiums themselves, where derby games and matches between teams from central Russian Federation and the north Caucasus are often hotspots for violence.
