NICE, France (AP) — French soccer club Nice says one of its fans was injured when a bus carrying supporters was pelted with stones after a league game at Lyon on Friday night.
Nice said in a statement overnight on X, formerly known as Twitter, that it wants the authorities to investigate this incident “where the consequences could have been tragic.”
Images online showed the bus had a crack on the windscreen. The incident reportedly happened on the way back from the game.
Lyon and Nice fans share a longstanding animosity that has led to clashes between rival groups in the past. Only around 300 Nice fans were allowed to attend the game, which ended in a 1-0 win for Lyon, and arrived at the stadium under police escort.
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Earlier this season, Lyon’s team bus was pelted with objects as it approached bitter rival Marseille’s stadium and former Lyon coach Fabio Grosso sustained a serious head injury.
Buses carrying Brest supporters were also targeted after games at Paris Saint-Germain and Montpellier, where a bus was hit by rocks reportedly thrown from a motorway bridge.
This season has been marred by increasing soccer violence in France and elsewhere in Europe, where a Greek fan was killed in August following a clash before a Champions League game between AEK Athens and Dinamo Zagreb.
After a Nice fan was stabbed and killed in Nantes before a match in early December, France’s sports minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra urged a clampdown on away fans at games in a bid to stem the violence.
The move, however, was seen as panicky and too widespread by many supporters’ groups because it punished clubs whose fans and Ultras were not usually involved in any violence.
After the latest incident, Oudéa-Castéra said on X that further measures will be taken to combat the problem.
On Friday, the Interior Ministry banned PSG’s fans from going to Nantes for a league game later Saturday due to a high risk of clashes between rival groups, who fought each other last season and in a pre-arranged fight in Nantes in 2020 on the eve of a match.
However, the ban was overturned by the Council of State, France’s highest administrative body, and PSG fans were authorized to travel — only for the number to be reduced from 1,000 to 500 by the local prefecture.
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