Saint-Etienne “thugs” invade the field and throw dozens of smoke bombs after the match

At the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium,

Already electric since the start of the evening, the Cauldron definitely ignited at 9:47 p.m. on Sunday evening. Auxerre captain Birama Touré has just scored his decisive shot on goal (1-1, 5-4 on pens), synonymous with a comeback Ligue 1 pour l’AJAand therefore of relegation for AS Saint Etienne. Dozens of Saint-Etienne supporters then jump onto the lawn and start throwing smoke bombs and fireworks everywhere. On the lawn as well as in the Pierre-Faurand stand, where the leaders and the sidelines of the club are located, this end of the return barrage turned into total chaos.

Players and staff from both sides then sprinted towards the locker room and were unharmed. The first assessment of these terrible incidents, for ASSE as for French football, the day after the organization fiasco of the Champions League final at the Stade de France, reports “19 minor injuries”. The Loire prefecture thus evokes this Sunday evening “2 slightly injured among the police and 17 slightly injured among the supporters, 3 of whom were taken to hospital for checks”.

#ASSEAJA | At the end of the play-off match between ASSE and AJ Auxerre, and after the penalty shootout, several hundred ultra supporters invaded the field and threw projectiles, fireworks and smoke bombs towards the public and the stands. pic.twitter.com/To6E2BypYX

– Prefect of the Loire (@Prefecture42) May 29, 2022

Access to this content has been blocked to respect your choice of consent

Clicking on ” I ACCEPT », you accept the deposit of cookies by external services and will thus have access to the content of our partners

I ACCEPT

And to better remunerate 20 Minutes, do not hesitate to accept all cookies, even for one day only, via our “I accept for today” button in the banner below.

More information on the page Cookie management policy.

The prefect of the Loire Catherine Séguin speaks in this press release of “thugs” and not of “supporters” to qualify the authors of these excesses, which led to the significant use of tear gas in the stadium. More than an hour after the end of the meeting, it indicates that 200 people “continued their abuses outside the stadium”. The prefecture did not communicate on a number of arrests, after an extremely dark evening for the Greens.