Aston Villa’s Europa League home game against BSC Young Boys was temporarily halted after away supporters clashed with police at Villa Park.
Objects were thrown toward Donyell Malen, who scored Villa’s opener, and Morgan Rogers also appeared to be struck. The unrest continued after Villa’s second goal, with more items thrown at Malen. Young Boys captain Loris Benito went over to try to calm supporters, but confrontations between fans and officers escalated, including punches and seats being thrown. Several supporters were ejected and the match resumed several minutes after the second goal; there were no further incidents in the second half.
Sky Sports’ Rob Jones at Villa Park:
“For the first 40 minutes of the game it was pretty good-natured. The Young Boys fans were making a good noise. The mood changed when Aston Villa scored their opening goal. Donyell Malen scored and ran across towards the Young Boys fans but not in an antagonistic way. As he ran to that side a host of things were thrown from the visiting supporters and one of them clearly hit Malen on the head. He finished the half after scoring a second goal with a clear cut on his head which had drawn blood. After that it became a lot more heated between the stewards inside the ground and the Young Boys fans. Initially it was plastic cups being thrown but after that there were at least two or three pale blue seats that were thrown by Young Boys supporters. There was a delay as the stewards dealt with the situation and two or three supporters were ejected. It was pretty unsavoury, the scenes we saw.”
Young Boys head coach Gerardo Seoane apologised for the behaviour of some supporters:
“I think it’s normal when you score a goal that you want to celebrate with your team-mates. Maybe it was a small provocation, I don’t know. Our fans maybe took this like a provocation, but I think this is part of the football; our fans should not react so heavily. The referee asked our captain to go to our supporters, and he was going there to calm a bit, and I think some supporters came down to have a talk, and the police reacted like they would jump into the pitch, but it was not their intention… It’s a pity for everybody, for the provocations, for throwing the object, for thinking that somebody would jump on the pitch, and I think the result is not nice for anybody, and for sure we apologise. The way our supporters are normally, it is not how we want to act when we are guests somewhere, and I think nobody wins at the end, everybody loses with this situation.”