The Malice South of Paris

There was a-doings a-transpirin’ in southern France yesterday. Perhaps in tribute to the release of the documentary “Malice At The Palace,” fans in Nice thought they would reenact it.

OM Marseille was visiting OGC Nice, and late in the second half, Marseille’s Dimitri Payet went to take a corner when he was pelted with a plastic bottle. Payet picked it up and returned fire, which led the Nice fans to attempt to raid the field en masse. It was not a pleasant scene:

At least one Nice fan got PWND for his trouble:

Marseille left the field and refused to come back when things had calmed down, and the match was abandoned. Marseille haven’t been forced to forfeit the match as of yet, and there hasn’t been word as to how the match will be finished.

Marseille went through this a couple weeks ago at Montpelier. That match at least finished. Fans have been let back into Ligue 1 games this season after closed-doors matches last year, and clearly, some are taking the euphoria a little too far.

Of the top five leagues in Europe, only France and England are allowing full crowds at the moment. Other than homophobic chants from Liverpool fans at Norwich, England hasn’t seen problems with fans just a little too unruly at being allowed back in stadiums, But of course, they had that whole Euro 2020 final embarrassment when English fans were first allowed back into a stadium.

Everyone around the globe has pent-up energy and angst after the past year and a half, but this isn’t the way to go about it. But then I guess we’ve become a little too accustomed to people acting irrationally and stupid lately around these parts.