In the streets of Lens, scuffles broke out between PSV Eindhoven supporters and the police before the Champions League match between the two clubs on Tuesday October 24. Projectiles being thrown between supporters were also observed at half-time at the Bollaert stadium.
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 C1, the first altercations occurred when more than 200 supporters of the Dutch club began to move around the city center. Escorted from Place du Cantin, where a fan zone is organized on the evenings of Champions League matches in Lens, they left the police procession by taking rue Victor-Hugo. Boulevard Emile-Basly, the police then dispersed the ultras using tear gas for the first time, then clashes broke out near the stadium.
Drones “to monitor the city center”
The hooligans were escorted by police officers mounted on horses, motorized brigades and police officers in civilian clothes. They were accompanied by a Republican security company until their entry into the Bollaert stadium to the boos of the Lensois supporters.
If calm returned to the streets of Lens a little less than an hour before kick-off, the stadium faced scuffles at half-time. The Dutch supporters began to tear down then throw seats and smoke bombs towards the Lensois supporters, in the Trannin stand. In return, they 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.
The prefecture had anticipated, in a decree dated October 18, the presence in Lens of “nearly 2,000 Dutch supporters, including around 500 hooligans”. The departmental directorate of public security of Pas-de-Calais had announced on X (formerly Twitter) the use of drones “to monitor the city center” and the surroundings of the stadium, “in order to ensure the safety of people and to anticipate any 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. on the pitch, before incidents occur outside the stadium.