Chennaiyin FC fans attacked during ISL game in Bengaluru

“BFC supporters weren’t happy with us joining forces with the FCPC faithful. It first started off with some verbal abuse in Tamil and then they started to physically ill-treat us. Despite coming out of the arena 45 minutes after the completion of the game, one of our members was severely attacked. He is now suffering from muscle spasms,” said Dinesh, who was at the venue when things panned out. 

Supermachans were seated alongside the ‘Orange Army’, the official supporters of FCPC, in level two of the North Upper stand. A group of 40 had travelled from Chennai to the ‘Garden city’ to catch the top of the table clash live. 

“We share a very good relationship with the FCPC fans because of the kind of support they had lent us during ISL 2015. They made the trip to Chennai during their away game on January 13. We wanted to show a little support to them and hence we attended the game in Bengaluru,” added Dinesh, a member of the Supermachans. 

When asked if the rival fan club West Block Blues were a part of this chaos, he added, “They had nothing to do with the incident as they were seated exactly opposite to us at the stadium.” 

Commenting on what spurred the fracas between the fan groups, he said, “We were questioned on why we supported a team which was geographically farther rather than our neighbor (Bengaluru). Us wearing the CFC jersey also triggered them to attack us.”

“When we tried to report the issue to the stadium police, we were given a response that a complaint would be accepted only if the issue had happened inside the stadium premises,” he added when queried if they had lodged a police complaint.

According to sources, the issue has now been taken up to the ISL authorities by members of the FCPC management. The cordial friendship between the two clubs, CFC and FCPC, dates back to 2015 when CFC played its home semi-final in Pune against ATK as a result of the floods here during that period.