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Lyon win violence-marred match

Olympique Lyon's Kim Kallstroem, front, competes with St Etienne's Vincent Hognon during their Ligue 1 soccer match in St Etienne, France, on Saturday. PHOTO: EPA

Champions Lyon returned to winning ways with a comfortable 3-1 victory at local rivals St Etienne in a match marred by crowd trouble on Saturday.

The runaway league leaders stormed into a 3-0 lead by the 47th minute but moments later the game had to be stopped after fans threw smoke bombs onto the pitch.

Police responded by firing tear-gas into the crowd to quell the trouble.

The game was held up for 20 minutes as players were sent back to the changing rooms before emerging to resume the game.

That was followed later in the day by fights between rival fans ahead of the Sedan versus Paris St Germain match.

Only it was fans of Dutch team FC Utrecht who clashed with PSG supporters before the game.

Utrecht fans have joined their Sedan counterparts for big matches ever since the French side paid tribute to their former player David Di Tommaso, who died in November 2005 while playing for Utrecht.

Utrecht fans charge a PSG section of the ground and later several Dutch fans were arrested.

These were the latest in a series of unsavory crowd incidents that have tarnished soccer's reputation.

On Wednesday, Sevilla coach Juande Ramos was felled by a bottle thrown from the stands and 10 days ago Lille fans pelted Manchester United captain Gary Neville with missiles during a Champions League match.

The worst scenes were in Sicily, though, at the beginning of last month where a policeman died after crowd trouble broke out between rival Catania and Palermo fans.

Lyon coach Gerard Houllier seemed unperturbed by the crowd problems, although he did complain that the stoppage affected his team's attacking flair.

"We saw a great Lyon team that scored three great goals and could have had two more," he said.
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