2023-10-25 01:48:00
A festive evening tarnished by scenes of violence. The Champions League meeting between Lens and PSV Eindhoven on Tuesday October 24 at the Bollaert stadium was punctuated by clashes in the city center of Lens, and projectiles being thrown between supporters at half-time. At the end of the match, a provisional report from the prefecture showed 24 minor injuries due to discomfort, drunkenness, beatings, and one arrest for damaging a police vehicle.
A little more than two hours before the kick-off of this match counting for the third day of the C1 group stage, the first altercations occurred when more than 200 supporters of the Dutch club began to move around the center -city. Incidents broke out between police and Dutch ultras, with the police using tear gas to disperse very mobile supporters in the face of projectiles and smoke bombs.
Escorted from Place du Cantin, where a “fanzone” is organized on the evenings of Champions League matches in Lens, they left the police procession by taking rue Victor-Hugo. Boulevard Émile-Basly, the police then dispersed the ultras using tear gas for the first time. Then it was near the stadium that clashes broke out.
Jets of seats and smoke bombs in the stands
The hooligans were escorted by police officers mounted on horses, motorized brigades and police officers in civilian clothes. They were accompanied by the CRS until they entered the stadium to the boos of the Lensois supporters. Calm returned to the streets of Lens, a little less than an hour before kick-off at 9 p.m. (7 p.m. GMT), announced the Pas-de-Calais prefecture.
But at half-time, the Dutch supporters began to tear up and then throw seats and smoke bombs towards the Lensois supporters, in the Trannin stand, journalists from Agence France-Presse noted. The Lensois fans threw glasses of beer, before the arrival of CRS in front of the Dutch park just before 10 p.m. and the resumption of the second half.
Dutch supporters regularly in the sights of the authorities
The prefecture had anticipated in a decree of October 18 the presence in Lens of “nearly 2,000 Dutch supporters, including around 500 hooligans”. The Pas-de-Calais police had announced on crowd movement “.
Dutch football is regularly confronted with problems of violence between supporters: at the end of September, the championship clash between Ajax and Feyenoord was definitively stopped after just under an hour of play in Amsterdam due to smoke bombs being thrown at the pitch, before incidents occur outside the stadium.
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