Patrick Vieira is being investigated by Merseyside Police and the Football Association after lashing out a fan who goaded the Crystal Palace manager during a pitch invasion, i understands.
At the end of Everton’s 3-2 win over the Eagles which secured the Toffees’ Premier League status with a game to go, fans surged onto the field of play to celebrate. It is a criminal offence to enter the pitch under UK law.
Footage showed one fan making an obscene gesture in close proximity to Vieira, who responded by grabbing him and kicking him. The supporter then fell to the ground.
A police statement said: “We are working with Everton FC to gather all available CCTV footage and are speaking to witnesses. No formal complaint has been received and enquiries into the incident are ongoing.”
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The assault on Billy Sharp showed that the rise of pitch invasion culture is becoming a problem20 May, 2022According to the FA’s guidelines on crowd management, Everton could also face action as if it is found they “did not do enough to prevent and/or deal with the misconduct of spectators”. The FA does not have jurisdiction over individual spectators, which means disciplinary measures will be taken against the club, who in turn can punish fans.
In his post-match press conference, Vieira said he had “nothing to say about that”.
It is the latest incident of fan disorder in a week that a Nottingham Forest season-ticket holder was jailed for assaulting Sheffield United forward Billy Sharp.
At Northampton’s play-off semi-final defeat at Sixfields, Mansfield player Jordan Bowery was charged by a supporter and there were reports of pyrotechnics thrown towards the players.
Ahead of the weekend’s Premier League fixtures, Newcastle manager Eddie Howe admitted he is growing increasingly “concerned” about the issue.
“I’m concerned for the safety of everyone connected with both teams because it’s not something we want to see on a regular basis,” Howe said. “The safety of players, referees, managers, coaches is paramount.
“We have to find a way to guarantee that safety, we’re there to do a job to the very best of our abilities but we shouldn’t have to be dealing with scenes that we’re seeing at the end of games.”
Pitch invasion culture is a problem that authorities need to solve
By Daniel Storey, i‘s chief football writer
Of course, we’ve always had pitch invasions. They are as wedded to our fan culture as accusing referees of corruption, making sure you walk to the same route to the ground for fear of spooking the laws of superstition and making an internal promise to a higher being that you don’t believe in that you will be extra virtuous if a tense match goes your way. Just me on that last one? Maybe.
But over the last few weeks, we have seen an explosion in pitch invasions. After Championship matches at Huddersfield’s John Smith’s Stadium, Nottingham Forest’s City Ground and Bournemouth’s Dean Court, supporters rushed the pitch to celebrate. Fulham supporters went one better, invading the pitch after the victory against Preston that earned them promotion and again after beating Luton to secure the league title.
And those who decry them will stand accused of policing joy or, worse, killing it. In part, the rise is probably fuelled by a reaction to the corporatisation and sanitisation of the fan experience, which has increasingly become a little homogenous in places. The rise of tifo culture is one way in which supporters rail against it. Invading the pitch, creating as memorable “I was there” moment as possible, is another. And at their best, they can still be that and nothing more.
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And if it’s very hard to stop the invasions, punishment becomes the only solution. You start with closing grounds for mass invasions and end with points deductions for repeat offenders. If that punishes with it the well-behaved majority, it may well force people to re-think their actions. It has to.
The only real conclusion is that this is all a damn shame. Nobody wants to regulate joy and nobody wants to tarnish the reputation of the many due to the actions of a grim few. Football supporters have too often been unfairly lambasted en masse by Governments to the point of victimisation. But we have a problem, one that isn’t being policed effectively and isn’t being self-policed either. Something needs to change before it escalates to the point where we have an incident that nobody wishes to even conceive.
This is an edited extract of Daniel Storey’s column, which you can read in full here
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