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MADRID - Tottenham Hotspur supporters were to blame for clashes with police during their team's UEFA Cup game at Sevilla and seven Spurs fans will appear in court, a Spanish official in Seville said today.
However, Tottenham said they wanted answers from the Spanish authorities over what sparked
the trouble because their fans, whose behaviour in Seville before the game had been excellent, were "showing no aggression whatsoever" at the match when some were set upon by riot police.
A number of Spurs fans were injured in the trouble that broke out in the first half of Thursday's quarter-final first leg at the Sanchez Pizjuan stadium, while television pictures showed seats and missiles being thrown at police.
Faustino Valdes, the Madrid government's representative in Seville, told Reuters: "We have two police...who have suffered some serious blows and we also have arrested some (seven) Tottenham fans who should be now appearing in court."
Spanish news agency Europa Press reported that 11 policemen suffered minor injuries as a result of Spurs fans throwing seats at them during the game. One policeman was admitted to hospital, but was released on Friday morning.
Explaining Thursday's events, Valdes said: "Some Tottenham fans under the influence of alcohol attacked the private security officers and police, there were some incidents as security tried to overcome the fans and nothing more."
However, Tottenham hit back on Friday in a statement defending the behaviour of their fans in Spain.
"Our supporters have been on four trips into Europe before this and have behaved impeccably so something was clearly different in the way they were treated last night to suffer this sort of response," said club secretary John Alexander.
"We really need to get to the bottom of just what the police were trying to do when they entered those segregation lines.
"We have been distressed to hear about incidents involving our supporters at a time when they were showing no aggression whatsoever and also in respect of our disabled supporters being set upon by the Spanish riot police.
"We need to understand how we are in a position whereby we have two... Spurs stewards assaulted by the Spanish police, along with our disability co-ordinator being injured too."
Tottenham said they would co-operate fully with European soccer's governing body UEFA, the British Embassy and the Spanish authorities to try to understand what happened.
Police chief superintendent Simon O'Brien, who was in Seville as an observer and will help the club investigate the cause of the trouble, praised the Tottenham stewards for doing "a remarkable and commendable job" at the match.
"...it was quite clear there was a different level of police intervention to that employed in the UK and the introduction of the police during the match in one particular section of the crowd undoubtedly contributed to the disturbances that we saw."
He said the behaviour of the Spurs fans' throughout the day was excellent and his comments were endorsed by Andy Smith, the FA Security Advisor who was also at the match.
Valdes sought to play down the trouble, adding there was no fan-on-fan violence, a view endorsed by Spurs, and that the afternoon in the city had passed smoothly.
"I really want to play down these events after the fantastic atmosphere that prevailed during the whole day.
"It was an incident surrounding a few people who behaved badly, probably because they had drunk too much."
The disturbances, which marred a 2-1 win for Sevilla, were the second to involve travelling English supporters in Europe in the space of 24 hours.
A total of 18 fans, 14 of them English and four Italian, were hurt in trouble in Rome where AS Roma beat Manchester United in the Champions League on Wednesday.
- REUTERS
