Violence condemned after death of Deportivo fan

The Presidents of Atletico Madrid and Deportivo La Coruna have condemned fighting prior to Sunday’s match between the teams after an away fan died.

AS reports that the Deportivo fan, who has yet to be officially named, had to be pulled from the Manzanares river. He is said to have suffered head injuries and hypothermia and underwent emergency cardiac treatment. He could not be resuscitated and passed away at 2.30pm local time.

There were a number of other injuries reported after fighting began hours before the 12pm kick-off. Marca claim around 200 people were involved and the incident is understood to have lasted for an hour.

AS add that as well as supporters from Atletico and Deportivo, there were fans of Alcorcon, Rayo Vallecano and Sporting Gijon involved.

Atletico President Enrique Cerezo and his Deportivo counterpart Tino Fernandez appeared at a joint Press conference following the match, which was won 2-0 by Atletico.

“I want to say this has nothing to do with football. They are radical groups that get together to cause these kinds of consequences,” Cerezo said, according to AS.

“Neither myself nor the President of Deportivo have anything to do with this. We preach peace and harmony among all teams. I’ve said that for a long time.

“We can’t give any details about these incidents. We don’t know what happened and there is an investigation.

“I repeat, neither Atletico nor Deportivo have anything to do with what happened. These are extremists with their own stories and accounts. It isn’t related to the football pitch.”

Fernandez echoed Cerezo’s comments and offered his support to the family of the deceased and called for more to be done to combat hooliganism.

“We express our strong rejection of violence. At present we don’t know the details. It’s tragic news,” Fernandez added.

“We give our thoughts to the family. This message of peace should be the end of all this. The clubs have to act so that this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.

“Our position is well known. It’s a tragedy. We’ve put ourselves at the disposition of the family.”

It has also been reported that the clubs and the LFP agreed to call off the match when news of the fighting first surfaced but were unable to contact the RFEF to do so.

The RFEF are the only body with the authority to cancel a fixture, AS report, but no one could be contacted.

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