The call was sent after the previous pre-union matches on the question, and there was official information about this issue: the final quarter of the Europa League match against the Lisbon Benfica team without supporting the Lisbon club, on April 18. To Marseille. The decision comes from the Bouches-du-Rhône police, who are preparing to issue an order preventing Benfica fans from reaching the Velodrome stadium and its surrounding areas, as well as from being present in the city.
According to our information, Pierre-Edouard Collex, who has been appointed Director of Police since February 7, will also ask the Ministry of the Interior to extend the ban, by simply canceling the travel of Lusitania supporters.
There are several reasons that explain this decision and go beyond simple sporting animosity between the two clubs. During the first exchanges between the different parties, Benfica indicated that it would be supported by no less than 3,500 fans, that is, the maximum capacity of the scale allocated to opponent fans in the Boulevard Michelet area.
Local authorities were then alerted to the fact that several hundred of these supporters were being extremely violent, whether from the No Name Boys or the Diabos Vermelhos (Red Devils). The former maintains a real closeness with a group of fans of Hajduk Split, Torcida Split, and the latter is often on the road; As for the latter, their ideas are close to the extreme right, which could exacerbate tensions with the Marseille crowd, which is the opposite of this ideology.
Another problem that led to such a decision is the fact that Benfica fans often seek to fight when Marseille is in the logic of defending the city, as was the case in the recent past in the Conference League, causing fights and damage.
Furthermore, the supervision of the Lisbonians appears to be very complex in terms of setup and management because the meeting places are not well respected and the arrival of fans is disjointed, some by air and others by land. , due to the presence of a large Lusitanian diaspora almost everywhere.
This season, Benfica fans have unfortunately distinguished themselves during several European trips, first in the Champions League where clashes took place in San Sebastian on the sidelines of the match against Real Sociedad. Three Benfica fans arrested After shipping sixty likes. In Toulouse, during the second leg of the Europa League qualifiers, incidents broke out in the city centre, with Portuguese extremists attacking local fans sitting in a bar.
In the context of increased vigilance over the enhanced VegiBirat plan, the authorities deemed it best to ban the presence of Portuguese fans inside the Velodrome Stadium. This should neither prevent individual travel (devices will be deployed at the airport and on main roads) nor the purchase of individual tickets…
