What sparked the brawl at Euro 2024 involving 150 people: ‘Serbian fans were already in the restaurant, England’s tried to get in as well’ | Football News

The England-Serbia Euro 2024 match on Sunday in Gelsenkirchen was marred off field tensions between both sets of supporters in the western Germany city. A brawl that involved 150 people outside of a restaurant has since resulted in eight fans – one English and seven Serbians – facing charges against them.
A day later, the Gelsenkirchen police chief responsible for conduct of the tournament, Peter Both has revealed what exactly led to the conflict between the two sets of supporters.
“The Serbian fan group was already in the restaurant and obviously ate there and then a larger group of English fans then tried to get into this restaurant as well. And that’s exactly what sparked the dispute,” Both said in a press conference on Monday.
“What we can hardly say now, of course, in retrospect, is did the Serbs refuse entry to the English or did the English provoke the Serbs? Of course, this can hardly be brightened up afterwards. The fact is that when they tried to enter the pub, there was an immediate physical altercation,” he added.
The unsavory scenes on Sunday saw the two sets of supporters hurling furniture at one another and throwing punches before the security forces stationed near intervened.

16/06/2024 Gelsenkirchen, Euro 2024🇩🇪ENG 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 + ALB 🇦🇱 (on the left) vs. SRB 🇷🇸 from another angle. pic.twitter.com/Sg9x6EaHJS
— (@thecasualultra) June 17, 2024
Both requested that those arrested should be banned from the tournament.  “We subsequently made several detentions. We carried out a total of around 50 identity checks. We took eight fans into custody before the game, who were then unable to watch the game,” he said.
Only one England fan arrested?
Both conceded, “If we had predicted in the opening press conference that there would be one detention [of an England fan], then we would all have gladly taken it.”
This isn’t the first time English fans have been under the scanner for being involved in brawls during the European Championships. Before and after the 2021 final in Wembley, the local fans were involved in the infamous breach at the venue that led to multiple incidents of violence with the home and away fans as well as the security stationed.
Furthermore opening up on why only eight arrests were made with more than 150 people involved in the aforementioned incident, Both explained, “Why did the police only take seven or eight people into custody when there were 150 people running around? The first issue is that you can only take someone into custody if you can make an individual accusation.
“So the ones where we can say either via video recordings or via personal evidence from deployed police officers, I can prove that you threw this chair, you threw this glass, you hit that one, have seen that, I can prove it – only those are then taken into custody accordingly,” he added.
England will next play Denmark on Thursday, January 20 in Frankfurt while Serbia will be up against Slovenia, who shared points with the Danes.