Police braced for high-risk Medellin derby
Reuters - Wednesday 06 April 2011, 01:08
BOGOTA - Breathalysers and
metal detectors will be used on fans going into the
Medellin derby on Wednesday following violence in the stands
during last weekend's meeting between the city's bitter rivals.
Fighting broke out between fans of Atletico Nacional and
Independiente Medellin in Saturday's "clasico" at the Atanasio
Girardot stadium and the referee stopped the match for several
minutes as police used tear gas to quell the riot.
Police reported 68 arrests, three people injured and
confiscated explosives, knives and marijuana.
The Colombian government's Commission for Comfort, Security
and Solidarity in Football also said on Monday there would be an
indefinite ban on minors attending matches and fans wearing or
carrying team colours in and around the stadium.
The city authorities have also confiscated private food and
drinks outlets inside the ground shared by Nacional and
Independiente.
Nacional, who won Saturday's derby 3-2 as the away team, are
third in the Apertura championship five points behind leaders
Once Caldas, after nine matches. Independiente are 10th, 11
points off the pace.
In Colombia, the season is divided into two championships
with teams playing each other once in each apart from the
so-called "clasicos", most of them city derbies, between
arch-rivals that are played twice per tournament and have caused
problems for authorities.
DEAD FAN
A column in leading daily El Tiempo criticising authorities
for their inaction recalled that a coffin was taken the previous
weekend into the stadium at Cucuta, reportedly containing a dead
teenage fan shot the day before so he could "see" his last
match.
"There was supposedly a dead person inside. It could have
been drugs, a knife, a pistol. Everyone blamed the police.
Cucuta's directors, like selling the sofa on discovering someone
has been unfaithful, decided (only) to close the south stand at
the stadium," it said.
It added that at another stadium, a fan entered with a knife
in his belt. "Didn't anyone body-search him?"
A fan was stabbed twice at the Cali derby, another of the
leading "clasicos" in which Deportivo Cali came from two goals
down to beat America 3-2, and had surgery on Sunday.