An arrest has been made following the depressing recurrence of tragedy chanting during the FA Cup match between Manchester United and Liverpool on Sunday.
As per the Liverpool Echo, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) confirmed that a spectator was arrested over the disgusting practice, which sadly overshadowed a pulsating cup tie between the two teams involved.
An excerpt from a statement by GMP reads: “Incidents of tragedy chanting will not be tolerated and will be dealt with robustly. We are all familiar with fans taunting their opponents at football matches, but this is generally done in good humour and without offence.
“The incidents today crossed the line of what is acceptable, and we will work closely with both clubs to identify anyone responsible for committing offences during the event.”
Not for the first time, a match between the two most successful clubs in English football has been overshadowed by instances of malicious idiots indulging in tragedy chanting.
Following yesterday’s encounter, footage emerged online of one particularly ignorant spectator mocking the Hillsborough disaster with abhorrent face and hand gestures, with their face very clear in the video, which should speed up the process towards a deserved prosecution.
By all means engage in good-natured banter with rival fans, and genuine United supporters were rightly (and with decency) celebrating a statement last-gasp victory for their team yesterday, the same as we’d have done had it been a Liverpool player rather than Amad Diallo who scored a stoppage time winner.
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Sadly, tragedy chanting has become far too commonplace in English football to the point where such loutish behaviour now seems to be normalised, given its regularity. The reason it so frequently rears its ugly head is because the ‘punishments’ meted out for such thuggery aren’t befitting of the crime.
We’ve had enough of tepid, copy-and-paste statements from the authorities condemning the practice without any significant action being taken to combat it.
Our thanks goes to those within GMP who’ve made the aforementioned arrest, and who continue to work towards trying to stamp out such behaviour once and for all, but far more still needs to be done before this disease is truly eradicated.