Police vow to prosecute A-League pitch invaders as FA pledges to ‘weed’ them out of game | A-League Men

Victoria police is reviewing footage of the pitch invasion during Saturday’s A-League Men’s Melbourne derby and has vowed officers will be “knocking on doors very soon”.

Three reported assaults are under investigation – to City goalkeeper Thomas Glover, a referee and a Channel Ten camera operator.

Insp Jason Goddard confirmed on Sunday afternoon police would pursue possible charges against any person who invaded the pitch. “If we can identify them, you can … rest assured we will investigate that and we will prosecute where we can,” he said.

When asked about Glover throwing a flare back into the crowd immediately before the invasion, the inspector said: “I’m not upset by anything at this stage when it comes to that”, but added detectives would investigate all parts of the incident.

Goddard was on duty at the game as part of a contingent of 134 police. He said that number was more than usually rostered on for a capacity crowd at the MCG which is three times the size of AAMI Park. Police had prepared for the possibility of a pitch invasion, he said.

“In recent times there has been a little bit of controversy … in relation to a decision made by the league,” Goddard said, referencing the A-League’s decision to award grand finals to Sydney. “We work very, very hard in the lead-up to these games, and we worked especially hard in the lead-up to this game.”

A “horrified, irritated and angry” James Johnson, the chief executive of Football Australia, had earlier promised swift action to identify and sanction those responsible for the violence that blighted the Melbourne derby, throwing the game in Australia into chaos.

FA was in contact with Victoria police, state and federal governments and the Australian Professional Leagues, after Victory fans stormed the pitch and caused the game to be abandoned amid shocking scenes that left a player, match official and cameraman injured.

Victory will be issued with a show cause notice by FA to explain the actions of their club’s supporters as part of a three-pronged line of investigation into the incident.

“We will be moving swiftly and we will be taking the strongest sanctions available,” Johnson said on Sunday.

“We’re looking at three separate [lines] of investigation. The first is what happened with the game last night, what happens with the result. The second will be a show cause letter from Melbourne Victory – that will be received as soon as possible but we will not close the door to a show cause letter to City at this point in time.

“The third focus of the investigation will be against the individuals who we are seeking to name, identify and sanction.”

Johnson said FA would be looking to “weed out” the small element that “infiltrates our game and tries to ruin it for the people who love it”.

“This pitch invasion, and I want to be clear about this, has nothing to do with a groundswell and the rising of our game,” Johnson said. “A parent who takes a child to grassroots football in Brisbane, or a young boy who plays in our league pathways in Perth, or the 40-year-old woman who plays amateur football in Sydney, or the fans who peacefully protested in Central Coast Mariners, the Wellington game, Newcastle game, all the other 2 million people across the sport who love and support our game – this is not about them, nothing to do with the 2 million people who love and support our game, week in, week out.”

Glover – the goalkeeper who required stitches to close a wound caused by a metal bucket that struck his head – will not be under immediate FA investigation for his part in the incident. Glover threw a flare that landed on the field of play back into the stands containing Victory’s active supporters, appearing to spark the pitch invasion.

“Tommy is in hospital and we’re focused on his health,” Johnson said.

The ugly scenes came just two weeks after the Socceroos bowed out of the World Cup following a successful run to the last 16 of the tournament in Qatar that captured the imagination of the nation, and with seven months to go before the Women’s World Cup is hosted on home soil in Australia and New Zealand.

Johnson said he was not too concerned about any impact on the Women’s World Cup, but he had already been in touch with Fifa and the AFC over the incident.

“These things happen and they aren’t specific to Australian football,” Johnson said. “What’s important is what our response is. Our response is very simple: there is no place in our sport for this type of behaviour and those who participated in this behaviour will be weeded out. That will give confidence to Fifa.”

Johnson said he did not consider the people who disrupted Saturday’s match to be fans and was at pains to make the distinction between them and the millions of true supporters of the game.

“This matter doesn’t reflect the broader game,” he said. “We saw in Melbourne at Federation Square, thousands and thousands of great football fans coming together to support the Socceroos. We saw this in other cities around Australia. These are fans and they cannot be branded or painted with the same brush as those individuals that invaded the pitch last night. These are two separate groups.”

The managing director of Melbourne Victory, Caroline Carnegie, said on Saturday that she was “disgraced and appalled” by the events.

“This is a group that we don’t condone the behaviour of and we don’t want at our club,” she said. “But there are a lot of fans and members of Melbourne Victory that do the right thing, and they turn up and support the boys and girls, and we stand as one with those fans.

Carnegie added that those responsible “aren’t true Melbourne Victory fans because if they were, they wouldn’t have hurt the game, the league or the sport last night”. Victory will work with police in any investigation into the events of Saturday.

On Sunday afternoon, the A-League in a statement said “football is the most inclusive sport”.

“It is for families and for law-abiding citizens who want to passionately support their team. The events that unfolded at the Melbourne derby last night, demonstrated that a small minority of people with criminal intent hide within our game.

“They neither understand nor love our game. What they do understand is how to use our game as a platform for their anti-social and illegal objectives. This is a watershed moment for our game that demands zero tolerance for the incidents that we witnessed last night and the kind of people that perpetrated them.

“Our clubs will work deliberately and exhaustively, hand-in-hand with law enforcement agencies, and with Football Australia – as the game’s regulator – to ensure that our game can never again be used as camouflage for criminals.”