Fan dies in fall from VIP box in Peru
LIMA - A 23-year-old fan died after falling 30 metres from a executive box at the end of a Peruvian derby marred by crowd trouble, the Alianza Lima club said Sunday.
Alianza demanded that the stadium of arch-rivals Universitario be closed following the incident which they said happened when fans of the home club burst into VIP boxes and attacked the occupants at the end of Saturday's match.
"I request the veto of Universitario's Monumental stadium as there is no guarantee of safety, what happened to this Alianza fan is deplorable," Alianza president Guillermo Alarcon told the club's website.
"We were also attacked, we had difficulty getting out, our buses had to wait for one hour," he added.
"We are not playing at the Monumental stadium again, it's unacceptable that there are acts of violence at this stadium."
Witnesses told Peruvian television that Universitario fans burst into the boxes, smashing bottles of beer and whisky, attacking the occupants and throwing paint over them.
They said there was no police presence in that part of the stadium.
The Monumental, sometimes used for international matches, has several tiers of executive boxes with a sheer drop to the ordinary seats below.
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There was also trouble before Saturday's game when television pictures showed a faction of Alianza Lima supporters known as the Comando Sur fighting amongst themselves.
Universitario won the match 2-1.