Newcastle Fans' Trauma in Marseille
Newcastle United supporters became the latest victims of disproportionate police force on the continent during their Champions League trip to Marseille, with the club now issuing an official complaint to UEFA. The incident occurred after the match on Thursday 27 November 2025, when travelling fans were allegedly attacked with batons and pepper spray by French authorities while attempting to return to their hotels.
A Dangerous Situation Unfolds
According to reports, supporters had been waiting patiently and without incident for up to an hour after the final whistle as part of safety measures. They were being released in controlled groups of approximately 500 at a time from the Stade Velodrome. However, after the first group departed peacefully, police began what witnesses described as indiscriminate assaults on the remaining fans.
The situation quickly escalated into a dangerous scenario with visible crushing becoming apparent in the upper concourse area of the away sector - a development that history has shown can have fatal consequences.
The Enduring Legacy of Heysel
This latest incident connects to a much deeper problem dating back 40 years to the Heysel disaster of 1985, where 39 fans lost their lives and 600 were injured when a wall collapsed before the European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus. While poor stadium design and crowd management failures contributed significantly to the tragedy, a widespread perception emerged that Liverpool fans were solely responsible.
Professor Clifford Stott of Keele University, a specialist in crowds and policing who co-authored the independent report into the 2022 Champions League final in Paris, told The Independent: "It is completely useless as a narrative to help us to understand the nature of the problem. What we're dealing with isn't hooligans, it's crowd management, crowd dynamics and crowd psychology."
A Pattern of Police Conduct
The treatment of Newcastle fans follows a worrying pattern of French police interactions with English supporters:
- Liverpool fans faced tear gas and dangerous crowding outside the Stade de France in 2022
- Manchester United supporters were similarly tear-gassed in Lyon last season
- French authorities consistently describe their measures as "proportionate" despite independent reports suggesting otherwise
These incidents violate the principles of the Saint-Denis Convention - legislation ratified by the Council of Europe in 2016 that established frameworks for managing major sporting events safely. Professor Stott noted that while this convention represented the ideal solution, its implementation remains "massively difficult" and UEFA has failed to properly oversee safety operations in its competitions.
Newcastle's statement emphasised their intention to "call on UEFA, Olympique de Marseille and local authorities to formally investigate this matter to ensure lessons are learned and this behaviour is not repeated." Yet as this four-decade-old problem continues to endanger travelling supporters with each new incident, the threat of another disaster looms ever larger.
