Simon Jordan backs French police after deploying batons and pepper spray on Newcastle United fans on Tuesday night
Newcastle United today issued a statement regarding the way fans were treated on Tuesday following the 2-1 defeat to Marseille in the Champions League.
In the lead-up to the fixture on Tuesday, Newcastle United had released reams of safety information for those fans heading to the notoriously crime-ridden part of France, and fans attending the game were well aware that they would be held back in the stadium after the full-time whistle.
However, the estimate of being kept in for an hour was conservative to say the least, with some fans saying they didn't get out until two hours after kick off.
The bigger concern, though, was how that was marshalled with French police decked in riot gear holding fans inside the stadium and using batons and pepper spray on fans to keep them inside.
Simon Jordan says the French police were within their rights to use the force they did
The melee was discussed on talkSPORT with Jim White and Simon Jordan speaking to fans to get their view on what happened, and you could just see that Simon Jordan was itching to make it the fans' fault.
While the former Crystal Palace owner did have sympathy for several aspects of what fans had to endure, he seemed perfectly fine with our fans being beaten and blinded.
"We can't argue about how French police and Spanish police have a zero tolerance policy towards what they consider any kind of disobedience or insubordination in an environment they control. We may not like it, we may not recognise it in our society. You can not walk up to a Spanish police officer and say some of the things we say to our police in this country because they won't have it. Or a French one in this instance."
The whole thing sounded completely shambolic and a nightmare for fans
If fans were going up to the police and being verbally abusive, that's one thing, but from the sound of it, as fans grew more restless, there was pushing from the back, and those at the front getting crushed were voicing their concerns and obviously, there's a language barrier which makes thins a bit more awkward, but that should, in our opinion, mean that they should show even more restraint.
Unless our lot were actually being unruly, abusive or violent, there is no need for the excessive force that was shown. We don't care about the cultural divide; it's common sense.
We've seen some videos of our fans acting like lunatics, and that tiny minority, absolutely, give them a bat if that's how policing is done over there, but 99% of fans were just there for a good time.
