At the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium,
Already electric since the start of the evening, the Cauldron definitely ignited at 9:47 p.m. on Sunday evening. Auxerre captain Birama Touré has just scored his decisive shot on goal (1-1, 5-4 on pens), synonymous with a comeback Ligue 1 pour l’AJAand therefore of relegation for AS Saint Etienne. Dozens of Saint-Etienne supporters then jump onto the lawn and start throwing smoke bombs and fireworks everywhere. On the lawn as well as in the Pierre-Faurand stand, where the leaders and the sidelines of the club are located, this end of the return barrage turned into total chaos.
Players and staff from both sides then sprinted towards the locker room and were unharmed. The first assessment of these terrible incidents, for ASSE as for French football, the day following the organization fiasco of the Champions League final at the Stade de France, reports “19 minor injuries”. The Loire prefecture thus evokes this Sunday evening “2 slightly injured among the police and 17 slightly injured among the supporters, 3 of whom were taken to hospital for checks”.
The prefect of the Loire Catherine Séguin speaks in this press release of “thugs” and not of “supporters” to qualify the authors of these excesses, which led to the significant use of tear gas in the stadium. More than an hour following the end of the meeting, it indicates that 200 people “continued their abuses outside the stadium”. The prefecture did not communicate on a number of arrests, following an extremely dark evening for the Greens.
