An inexperienced referee, an ineffective UEFA delegate, an outraged city. The incidents caused by radical Anderlecht fans, which resulted in five arrests and the shock of many Real Sociedad fans, who saw pieces of methacrylate fall from the visitor’s stands and chairs torn off by the Belgian team’s ultras, have provoked reactions of stupor and anger in San Sebastián. From the mayor, Eneko Goia, to the txuriurdin entity, which has requested an urgent meeting from UEFA, through dozens of realistic followers in videos, demonstrations on television and messages on social networks.
Under the direction of the Romanian Marian Alexandro Barbu, who whistled for the first time in a Europa League match after little international activity, with an Ireland-Gibraltar qualifier for the Euro Cup as the culmination, the match between Real and Anderlecht was only stopped for two minutes, and this at the request of the realistic players who surrounded the linesman closest to the incidents in the stands, and Alex Remiro, the San Sebastian goalkeeper, who delayed taking a free kick until the referee, in an attitude Pusillanimous, he decided to act only for a short period of time.
By that time, the president of Real, Jokin Aperribay, had already gone down to speak with the UEFA delegate, the German Ronald Zimmermann, to request that the match be suspended, or stopped for the time necessary for the match to be restored. order, but the representative of the international organization, who, together with the referee, had the power to stop the clash, refused. “People who come to see their team have to go home because four idiots are throwing things,” Real captain Mikel Oyarzabal pointed out indignantly. “It must be condemned, UEFA has to take a step forward. “We had been saying for a few minutes that they had to stop the game because things were falling on the field and UEFA has done nothing.”
By then, the Anderlecht ultras had destroyed the methacrylate screen that prevented objects from being thrown into the lower stands, and which was placed precisely because of the incidents in a previous match against Benfica. Through the hole they opened in the protection, they threw pieces of seats, and the broken methacrylate, at royalist followers who had to vacate, terrified, the lower tier, and take refuge in the aisles. At half-time, the Ertzaintza riot police accessed the lower part of the visitors’ stands, where the radicals were equipped, and charged at them. The scuffle ended with five detainees, one of them was released early Friday morning.
But in San Sebastián they had already had the fly behind their ears for several days before. They knew how Anderlecht’s ultra fans spent their time and had tried to take precautions. The indignation grew when the operation of the Interior Department of the Basque Government decided to concentrate the Belgian fans in the center of the city, when, just a week ago, the 300 peaceful Real fans who went to Nice were isolated before the match. , ten kilometers from the French town. The known fact that the Belgians would cross all of Donostia to reach the Amara neighborhood, where the Reale Arena is located, forced several schools in the area to advance the departure of students and suspend extracurricular activities, which caused even more indignation. among the neighbors, many of them affected by the change in their children’s schedules. “It cannot be that the city is afraid throughout the day and then ends with the incidents that we saw attacking Real fans,” says the mayor of San Sebastián, Eneko Goia. “Real Sociedad cannot be forced to sell tickets to fans of this type. That’s the first thing and La Real thinks the same,” he points out. According to the councilor, “the first thing we are going to try is to ensure that fans who do not know how to behave do not come here, there are too many of them. If that is inevitable, we will have to talk to the Department of the Interior so that what has to be done does not collapse the entire city, it cannot be that the city is scared all day by some unscrupulous people who come to intimidate.”
In this regard, Real Sociedad has formally requested a meeting with UEFA to ask for explanations about the decision not to suspend the match against Anderlecht. The club “wants to inform you that it has requested a meeting with UEFA so that today’s events are the last that our fans have to experience,” stated an official note from the entity, which is beginning to fear what may happen in the next European event. in Anoeta against Ajax, on November 28. On Thursday, the Dutch team played at Fortuna Prague against Slavia (1-1), and although there were no incidents in the stands, the Czech police confiscated a good number of flares, brass knuckles, baseball bats, pepper sprays, batons and other blunt objects. Ajax appears in the Dutch Eredivisie with two fewer games, since the Police in their country went on strike after being unable to guarantee security in the matches organized by the Amsterdam team.