The referee in charge of Sunday’s Madrid derby halted the game midway through the second half after Atletico Madrid fans threw objects onto the pitch shortly after rivals Real Madrid took a 1-0 lead.
Eder Militao’s 64th-minute strike gave the visitors the lead in a closely contested match but a few minutes later, Atletico Madrid fans pelted items towards Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois. A series of lighters were spotted on the pitch, which Courtois proceeded to toss out of the way before referee Mateo Busquets Ferrer suspended the match in the 69th minute.
Announcements were made inside the Wanda Metropolitano warning fans to stop disrupting the match, and match messages were also on display on in-stadium screens.
As players made their way towards the tunnel, Atletico Madrid players and staff walked towards the fans, some of whom continued to litter the field. Jose Maria Gimenez and Koke were seen pleading with supporters to quit the behavior, as did manager Diego Simeone, who pointed towards his head as if to suggest fans should think before disrupting the game.
Play resumed about 21 minutes after Busquets Ferrer paused the game, and Atletico went on to score an equalizer courtesy of Angel Correa’s strike in the fifth minute of stoppage time. As the game returned, La Liga issued a statement condemning the disorderly conduct.
“Zero tolerance for any act of violence inside or outside our stadiums,” the league wrote in a brief comment shared on social media.
The incident was attributed to ultra group Frente Atletico, per The Athletic. Four members of that group were charged in December 2023 for hanging an effigy of Real Madrid’s Vincius Junior near the club’s training ground earlier that year, and were deemed responsible for racist abuse faced by Athletic Bilbao’s Nico Williams at the Metropolitano in April of this year. The game against Athletic was also halted by the referee, and Koke and Gimenez were also spotted telling fans to stop the racist abuse. Atletico received a two-match partial stadium ban for the incident.
Many anticipated there might be disruptive behavior at Sunday’s Madrid derby. A group of Atletico fans launched a pre-game campaign to wear masks in the Metropolitano Stadium to avoid being caught breaking La Liga’s anti-discrimination policy, per the Associated Press, something the league asked law enforcement to act upon before kickoff. Injured Real Madrid star Kylian Mbappe, meanwhile, was discouraged by his club from attending the game to support his teammates, per L’Equipe, and watched it from home.
Though La Liga policy allows referees to abandon games with disruptive fan behavior including discriminatory abuse, Atletico goalkeeper Jan Oblak told broadcasters in a post-match interview that it was not something that crossed his mind. He also condemned the fan conduct but minimized the impact players can have in rooting out such behavior.
“It happens all the time, not just here …I don’t defend anyone. These things are not right so the referee was right to stop the game,” he told ESPN. “It’s not a nice image for football, for sure … It is sad but what we can do? At first, we are on the pitch, the field to play, to give everything for ourselves and we cannot control everything. I hope in the future, these things will not happen again, that we will just see a nice image of football.”
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