Sadly, the football has been pushed out of the headlines during the opening days of Euro 2016.
Trouble involving English and Russian fans in Marseille has been well documented in the last 72 hours or so, with some of the worst violence seen in the hours before the match between the two nations on Saturday night.
Following the game at Stade Velodrome, Russian supporters were recorded hurdling the inadequate segregation in the stadium in pursuit of the English supporters, who could be seen fleeing for the exits.
And unfortunately, the trouble wasn’t limited to Marseille.
At about the same time English supporters were fleeing from the Russians, further down the French Riviera in Nice, Polish and Northern Irish supporters were attacked in violence in Nice.
With the two nations facing each other at the city’s Allianz Riviera stadium on Sunday, it was initially claimed that supporters were fighting against each other. However, it later emerged that this was not the case, and the trouble was blamed on local hooligans.
https://twitter.com/YannQuerciaa/status/741739534711455745
The BBC’s Mark Simpson shared the following footage, showing Northern Irish and Polish enjoying each other’s company after calm had been restored.
We’d much rather see footage like this in the days ahead:
Order restored in centre of Nice. Poland & NI fans singing together. French hooligans blamed for starting trouble. pic.twitter.com/GO60Rc5MWr
— Mark Simpson (@BBCMarkSimpson) June 11, 2016
