No away fans

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Back in September when the draw and dates were confirmed, Legia would have expected 5% of capacity, i.e. approximately 2,000 tickets. Flights and hotels would have been booked. Then their fans misbehave and UEFA, Villa and WMP decide to reduce the number of tickets by 50%. Whilst I feel sorry for the fans, Legia should have financially compensated their fans and advised them not to travel. They did neither and thought they'd bluff us to letting in all their fans that turn up. They'd also see their unticketed fans storm the entrances at AZ so it was pretty predictable what may happen should we not lie down and fall for their bluff.

I feel sorry for those genuine fans that bought flights and booked hotels back in September but it's their club they should be angry with.

Although from our statements, they had a month to tell their fans this, it wasn't that sudden a decision. They didn't seem to until the 25th Nov when the first complaints from Legia appeared on SM. Obviously they might have been complaining to UEFA in the background but when they publicised it, all they did was blame us.

Oh absolutely! I've just found the first club statement from yesterday:

The UK safety authorities, UEFA and Aston Villa, communicated on November 2 that the ticket allocation for away fans for this fixture would be reduced to 1,002 on the advice of safety authorities as a result of previous large-scale disorder caused by Legia fans last month at AZ Alkmaar.

[Small Rodent]

When did we play Fulham? I knew the allocation had been halved back then.

[pablo_picasso]

Always the victims this lot. Moaning about not getting enough tickets yet failing to blame their own idiots for causing issues throughout Europe over the past few years.
What you would expect is some responsibility from the hierarchy at the club, but no. Surely they have some intelligence somewhere and know why they don’t get tickets or recieve bans. They’ve got form as long as your arm and no one wants them. Even a ban on tickets won’t work as they turn up causing the same issues as last night.
I haven’t heard any apology from that club, instead they are blaming us. That shows you that Europe is not only fighting a battle with the fans but the club itself. A long ban, huge fine and whatever other punishment you can think of is the only way. What an embarrassment of a club they are.

I fully agree with this.

We had a long ban from Europe to fix our hooligan problem.

The same is needed for them...

[Somniloquism]

Though I can kind of see why it's done, this regime whereby all of the away fans have to assemble at a single point to obtain their tickets, a few hours before the game, is not one I like.

This regime where if 50-100 of fans kick off the other 800 are lumped in with them and denied access having spent time and money travelling and having done nothing wrong is shameful treatment in my opinion. Clearly if every one of them rioted then that different but from the footage this doesn't seem to be the case, in fact some fans couldnt have as they got access to the home sections.

The club reps could have had the tickets in the morning and have been giving them out to the 800 or so throughout the day at a "safe" location. They decided not to take them until 4pm, which then forced the fans to come to VP to pick them up. However they still didn't give them out then, but instead tried to get WMP to backdown en-masse.

Unless of course you do not believe independent observers, the WMP, or the club on what happened?

[Paul.S]

From my friend who is a Legia supporter/STH (didn't travel) on how its being reported over there. Note I am not agreeing with him I'm just saying there are different perspectives here:

The focus in Poland is on the cause of the problem, and the cause is that according to UEFA official regulations, AV was supposed to allocate 2100 tickets to Legia fans (5% of the stadium). Initially AV proposed I think 1200, which was against the regulations, but we somehow accepted that and both clubs agreed on 1700. But without any explanations AV changed the number to 890 at the very last minute. This happened after a lot of fans bought the plane tickets. So they got pissed off. So while yes, media do report the fact that they started riots and it's clear that our fans are to blame, there is an overall feeling of having been treated really unfairly, being in major part the explanation of what happened in Birmingham last night.

Trying to be objective I do know that our fans can be wild and they shouldn't have started clashing against  the police - it definitely won't help our cause i.e. other clubs will continue treating us as savages and - lawfully or unlawfully - they will do anything they can to limit our presence on away games. So in that context it was plain stupid. At the same time I would go ballistic if I organised my time and spend money on the plane ticket only to learn at the very last minute that some said "well, yeah, fuck off" 🤷🏻‍♂️😁. Especially that we gave you full allocation, there were I think around 2000 AV fans in Warsaw, all happened in peace, all enjoyed the trip (except for the result) so we were expecting basic reciprocity.

Did you ask him/her about what happened in Madrid, Holland and Leicester. Whose fault was that?

[Richard E]

They should be kicked out of the competition. Simple as that.

[PeterWithesShin]

If the tickets were never distributed then no one was getting in anyway.

[Somniloquism]

When did we play Fulham? I knew the allocation had been halved back then.

12th November. It trickled into public consciousness about the 25th when posts appeared in the Conference group thread asking about Legia posts about it, with people on here having ago at the club then about the "sudden" decision.

[Lastfootstamper]

If I'd arranged travel to anything, not just football, in a different city or country and then found out the thing I was planning to attend was now not available to me, I'd either suck it up and just not go, but more likely I'd still go but do something else. I've sorted the travel, I've juggled my time, enjoy it like I would've anyway. I certainly would not think, "fuck it, I'll smash my way in", and anybody that does is a ****** possessing the highest levels of antisocial fuckwittery. No excuses. ******, to a man.

[Small Rodent]

When did we play Fulham? I knew the allocation had been halved back then.

12th November. It trickled into public consciousness about the 25th when posts appeared in the Conference group thread asking about Legia posts about it, with people on here having ago at the club then about the "sudden" decision.

If my Polish brother-in-law knew it back then from the Polish sports news, then they all did. If he can hear of it in south London, then they have no excuse.

[Aldridge Villa]

Reassuring to see that the deplorable behaviour of the away fans is now taking centre stage on this thread as opposed to the initial posts inexplicably questioning the antics of WMP.

[Ads]

How does stewarding work with European ties? Does the away team provide stewards?

Yeah it's part of the rules that you have to provide your own stewards at a certain ratio to fans.

[itbrvilla]

Plenty of the twats appeared to be wearing balaclavas so obviously here to behave and have a good time.

[Ads]

When did we play Fulham? I knew the allocation had been halved back then.

12th November. It trickled into public consciousness about the 25th when posts appeared in the Conference group thread asking about Legia posts about it, with people on here having ago at the club then about the "sudden" decision.

If my Polish brother-in-law knew it back then from the Polish sports news, then they all did. If he can hear of it in south London, then they have no excuse.

Bladen told me at Alkmaar that the allocation had been cut, so they knew from October at least.

[olaftab]

The guy who had done UEFA inspections who was at the game and tweeting last night said this:

https://twitter.com/cliffordstott/status/1730492369449927162

Have you seen his latest tweet showing the destruction and makeshift weapons used.
https://twitter.com/cliffordstott/status/1730617505339629804

He mentioned last night that it was the worst he had seen at a UEFA sanctioned event. I wonder if he was also involved with the discussions during the day as well and was commenting on that point as well.

To be truthful the debris shown in photos is nothing unusual in the streets aroun Villa Park.