Advertisement

Belgium's Standard bars travelling fans after crowd trouble

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian premier league club Standard Liege will seek to bar their supporters from travelling to away matches after their match with Charleroi was abandoned on Sunday due to crowd trouble. Both sets of fans threw objects at opposition goalkeepers, forcing referee Serge Gumienny to stop the match in the 58th minute and then abandon it 10 minutes after it had restarted. Standard, one of Belgium's most popular teams, have decided to end sales of tickets for away matches at least until the end of the regular season in mid-March when the league is split between championship and relegation playoffs. "Standard Liege therefore is spontaneously taking a measure without precedent in the history of Belgian football," the club said in a statement, adding that they had had no problems at home for over two years. Standard, who were leading 3-1, also said points for the match in question should still be awarded. It was not clear if and when the match will be replayed. On Sunday, the referee stopped the match for the first time because Standard fans had hurled small projectiles and a smoke bomb at the Charleroi goalkeeper. Standard coach Serbian Aleksandar Jankovic took a loudspeaker from one of the supporters and appealed to the club's fans to behave. The match was restarted, but abandoned after a further 10 minutes of play after Charleroi fans threw cigarette lighters and a plastic beer glass at Standard's keeper. Standard, who host Ajax in the Europa league on Thursday, were leading in the derby between the rivals from the two big industrial cities of Belgium's French-speaking Wallonia region. Charleroi are sixth in the league, one place and five points ahead of Standard. "Football must remain a party, a communion and not a masquerade of bad taste orchestrated by some unthinking, unconscious or frustrated forces who simply do not deserve a place in stadium," Charleroi said in a statement. The club added that the match result was not 3-1, but "three zeros". "Zero for Standard, zero for Charleroi and zero for football," Charleroi said. (Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop, editing by Ed Osmond)