Eighteen injured, including one seriously: heavy toll for the violent clashes between supporters Thursday at the Allianz Riviera in Nice before the European Cup match between OGC Nice and the Germans of FC Cologne, finally postponed by one hour , until calm returns. An hour before the kick-off of the match on this first day of the Europa League Conference, the smallest of the three European Football Cups, several hundred hooded supporters in the colors of the Cologne club, out of the more than 8,000 present in the Ray tribune, invaded the presidential tribune, or Ségurane tribune, to go and do battle with the Nice supporters, installed in the popular southern tribune.
A supporter hit the knife
According to the prefecture, questioned by AFP, “it was the Germans who charged”. Fans came to blows, sometimes armed with chairs or iron bars torn from the stadium, AFP journalists found in the stadium. A total of 18 people were injured, including a supporter slightly hit by a knife, and three hospitalized, according to a count from the prefecture around 8:00 p.m.
Among them, a supporter who came from the FC Cologne stand was hospitalized in “absolute emergency” after a fall of more than 5 meters between two levels of the stands. His vital prognosis is engaged, insisted the prefecture around 8:00 p.m. “Very alcoholic”, this man was in fact a Parisian supporter, said around 8:00 p.m. the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes to AFP.
This information confirms the declarations of several sources evoking with AFP the presence of Parisian supporters in the tribune of FC Cologne, wearing their colors. They would have been spotted by Nice supporters before the meeting. At the start of the match, at 7:40 p.m., almost an hour late, the PSG “Supras Auteuil” supporters club took out a banner in the tribune allocated to the Germans, noted a journalist from the AFP.
UEFA crisis meeting
Faced with these incidents, the gates of the stadium had been “temporarily closed, until calm returns” after the intervention of the police, explained the prefecture. During a crisis meeting at the stadium between representatives of UEFA (Editor’s note: the European Football Federation), the prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes, the public prosecutor and the mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, he was jointly decided to postpone the kick-off, originally scheduled for 6:45 p.m.
After a German-language announcement asking Cologne fans to calm down, Nice captain, Brazilian Dante, took the microphone to speak to the Nice fans: “We all know you had nothing to do with it” , launched Dante. “I am counting on you and on the organization to be able to play this match. I am counting on you and your support”.
“Our sport is dirty”, according to the Minister of Sports
The Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, deplored that “our sport is dirty”, Thursday evening, during an event with sponsors organized in Paris by the Sporsora association. “It’s fed up, it’s really fed up that our sport is soiled in this way, that we can no longer say to ourselves that we are going with our kids in a serene and reassuring way in a stadium”, regretted the minister.
As of Thursday afternoon, even before arriving at the stadium, the German supporters had degraded Nice monuments and tagged tram stations in Nice. The town hall of Nice assesses the damage and Mr. Estrosi indicated that he would ask the Cologne club for reimbursement. “There were hints of confrontation on the part of German supporters outside the stadium,” the prefect’s chief of staff, Benoît Huber, told AFP.
No arrests at half-time
At 8:30 p.m., at halftime of the match, no arrest had yet taken place, according to the prefecture. A year ago, in August 2021, the Mediterranean derby between Nice and Marseille in Ligue 1 had degenerated and the meeting had never ended.
Nice supporters had invaded the field and had transformed it into a ring after Dimitri Payet, the playmaker of OM, had sent yet another plastic bottle aimed at him towards the stand.