ATHENS, Greece — This weekend’s top-level soccer matches in Greece have been postponed following severe clashes involving sports followers that left a police officer in essential situation after he was hit by a flare.
Greek league organizers mentioned weekend matches could be rescheduled after it didn’t fill referee positions for key matches.
The resolution introduced Friday adopted a sequence of violent sport-related incidents and got here hours after police detained greater than 400 folks following the riots exterior a volleyball stadium in Athens.
Violent teams of soccer followers usually select different sports the place their golf equipment are represented, and have a decrease degree of policing, to hold out assaults.
“The perpetrators of these horrendous crimes have nothing to do with sport. … They are common criminals who threaten and sometimes take human lives and destroy property,” authorities spokesman Pavlos Marinakis mentioned.
The newest clashes occurred throughout a volleyball match between town’s two largest golf equipment, Panathinaikos and Olympiakos – who’re fierce rivals on the soccer subject and in lots of different sports. Scores of followers attacked riot police exterior the stadium, hurling flares, gasoline bombs and rocks, whereas police responded by firing tear gasoline.
Doctors at a close-by state hospital mentioned a 31-year-old police officer was in a coma after a flare hit his left thigh, inflicting severe arterial harm and intensive blood loss that triggered a cardiac arrest.
“One of our police officers has suffered a murderous attack,” Giannis Oikonomou, a minister for public order, mentioned. “This attack must not and will not go unpunished. It is a question of upholding the law and of justice. The Greek police for a very long time – like the whole of our society – has been paying a heavy price for fan violence.”
Police had been questioning the detained suspects at a big holding facility close to the scene of the clashes, exterior the 1,800-seat Melina Mercouri indoor stadium within the Agios Ioannis Rentis space west of the capital. Residue checks had been being carried out on the suspects’ fingers and clothes to attempt to decide in any of the folks detained had dealt with flares, authorities mentioned.
Earlier they recovered fragments of burnt clothes, flares and remnants of improvised incendiary units.
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