Rangers claim police actions led to crowd trouble

Published on Thursday 5 November 2009 12:09

RANGERS officials have attributed crowd trouble at the club's Champions League away match against Unirea Urziceni to poor policing and organisation.

Club chief executive Martin Bain said fans were targeted by police with CS spray when they complained that too few turnstiles were open at the Bucharest stadium.

Rangers are expected to launch an official complaint with UEFA over the handling of the match.

The club's supporters are also reported to have ripped up seats inside the stadium and clashed with stewards during the match.

Mr Bain condemned the "unacceptable" behaviour of some of the club's

travelling fans but said the police's use of CS gas had aggravated the situation.

He said: "Obviously the behaviour of some of the fans inside the stadium was unacceptable and no-one likes to see that.

"However, what was equally unacceptable was the fact that Rangers came to this stadium with representatives from UEFA and Unirea a number of weeks ago and arranged for the four turnstiles to be open to give access to our supporters.

"When they arrived this evening there were only two turnstiles open which caused difficulty gaining access and (for) fans then to be sprayed with CS gas is totally unacceptable."

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Trouble at the match was described as a "minor incident" by Andy Kerr, president of the Rangers Supporters Assembly.

He told Sky Sports News: "There was a bit of pressure at the front. Spray was used, which was used before the start of the match, and I think people reacted to that.

"I wouldn't say the Rangers fans did anything wrong. The organisation was very poor.

"(Before the match) they had two cordons of barriers to let people through.

They used the spray there on more than one occasion and people were quite distressed by that."

Mr Kerr said he did not see any fans ripping up seats, but stressed such behaviour was unacceptable.

He said: "We don't condone it, we don't want to see it, but the vast majority of people behaved impeccably.

"In the big scheme of things, (it's) a minor incident."