From all points of view, the end of this Saint-Étienne-Auxerre (1-1, 4-5 on pens), Sunday May 29, was predictable. Sportingly first, as this descent into Ligue 2 hung in the face of ghostly Greens during the regular season. Regarding the clashes in the stands, a crystal ball was not necessarily required to imagine an invasion of the field by angry Stéphane supporters after relegation.
The land is completely overgrown. #ASSEAJA @franceinfo @francetvsport pic.twitter.com/Kv1isnyTFz
— Elio Bono (@eliobonobo) May 29, 2022
At 9:38 p.m., Antony Gautier, the referee of the meeting, had just whistled the end of the extension that dozens of ultras, mostly from the Green Angels group, deserted their stands to await the sentence, at the edge of the field. . In an already lunar scene, they experienced the penalty shootout at the edge of the lawn, ready to spring on the meadow. In front of them, CRS protected the arrival in the locker room. According to our information, supporters had planned to overwhelm the field whatever happens, maintenance or relegation. “I’m exhausted tonight, we’ve come up with plans A, B, C, D, etc. if the pitch is overrun”confided a club employee a few moments before the start of the meeting.
Sincere as it is, the crisis management turned out to be chaotic. The horde of stewards was not enough to play the role of filtering barrier, and the security device surrounding the meeting, around 200 CRS, proved insufficient to prevent overflows, the day after the incidents during the League final champions at the Stade de France. The Loire prefecture indicated that the toll was 14 slightly injured among the police, 17 slightly injured among supporters, and two slightly injured among Auxerre players.
Sainté is in Ligue 2. Fireworks rocked on the lawn and on the CRS. It’s very very hot. #ASSEAJA @franceinfo @francetvsport pic.twitter.com/J3dfOAmzXv
— Elio Bono (@eliobonobo) May 29, 2022
In the 77th minute, already, a handful of supporters had entered the lawn to celebrate the equalizer of Mahdi Camara. The announcer had not seen fit to reprimand them. A good hour later, at 9:48 p.m., the joy of the Cauldron turned into lightning. The players had not yet suffered defeat on penalties when they were already escorted to the locker room by CRS. In addition to squealing whistles, “supporters gathered towards them”told us a witness “two meters away” from the scene.
“We all quickly returned to the locker room, we were afraid that we were missing one or two!”, smiled Jean-Marc Furlan a few minutes after the fact. And the Auxerre coach to add: “I took I don’t know how many teargas!”. The second that Birama Touré succeeded in his shot on goal to send Auxerre to Ligue 1 (and therefore Saint-Étienne to Ligue 2), aA string of smoke bombs was propelled with tense fire on the lawn in the direction of the CRS. These red and green rockets with a dull sound before detonation were probably directed towards the locker rooms. Fireworks were also set off.
In response, the CRS propelled tear gas to disperse the Saint-Etienne crowd. Their intensity, felt throughout the stadium, emptied the bays of the Cauldron and cut the whistle to the journalists present in the press box. Half an hour later, the unpleasant smell still oozed the courtyards and corridors of the enclosure.
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The tension had meanwhile dropped a tone. Ten minutes after the invasion of the field, only several dozen supporters remained on the lawn, drowning their despair by peacefully pacing. The smoke was finally dissipating, and you could see the 1,100 Auxerre supporters celebrating the rise of theirs. Even chanted vehemently, their songs painfully masked the audible distress of the Saint-Etienne fans. Who pursued some acts of violence outside of Geoffroy-Guichard, in particular attacking “on the coach of the Auxerre players”, announced the L’Equipe channel. The prefecture clarified that “the 1,154 AJA supporters were able to leave the stadium safely from midnight under police escort”after another very sad evening for French football.