November 28 – The label ‘English fans – handle with caution’ used to be common across Europe in the 70s and 80s, when aggressive policing was the norm. Supporter behaviour has improved dramatically since those days, but the policing clearly hasn’t kept pace. Newcastle United have become the latest club to see their fans on the wrong end of heavy-handed tactics from the very people meant to keep them safe.
Newcastle say their travelling supporters faced “unacceptable treatment” after Tuesday’s 2-1 defeat in Marseille during their Champions League match. The club accused French police of deploying pepper spray, batons, and shields against fans as they were being moved away from the Stade Vélodrome.
In a statement, the club said: “We will be formally raising our concerns with Uefa, Olympique de Marseille and French police in relation to the unacceptable treatment of our supporters by police at Stade Vélodrome following Tuesday’s UEFA Champions League fixture.”
According to the club, fans were held inside the stadium for an hour for what was described as a safety measure before being released in groups of 500 and escorted toward the metro. That’s when, Newcastle say, the plan fell apart.
“Once the first group of supporters was released, the police began using unnecessary and disproportionate force to stop the remainder of our fans from moving any further,” the statement read. “This was actioned through a combination of pepper spray, batons and shields, with numerous supporters being indiscriminately assaulted.”
The club also described scenes in the upper concourse where “crushing became apparent,” leaving supporters “visibly distressed.” Staff tried to intervene with police “with limited impact.”
If heavy-handed French police action against English football supporters sounds familiar, it should. Liverpool fans lived through a policing nightmare at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, in the suburbs of Paris, during the 2022 Champions League final. French authorities initially blamed supporters before independent reviews exposed policing 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 account, saying a small “crowd surge required the intervention of the CRS riot police,” and that “one of whom 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 behaviour is not repeated,” and have asked fans to submit their accounts. The hope is that, unlike Paris, those lessons are taken seriously before someone gets hurt.
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