Football’s ‘darkest day’ in Australia after violent pitch invasion

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Football Australia plans to use the full force of its powers to sanction individuals involved in the A-League Men Melbourne derby pitch invasion that delivered one of Australian sport’s darkest nights.

Saturday night’s match was abandoned after fans from the Melbourne Victory active area stormed the AAMI Park pitch, with Melbourne City goalkeeper Tom Glover and referee Alex King struck by a metal bucket and injured.

The league is run by the Australian Professional Leagues (APL) but Football Australia manages judiciary matters and said it would commence an investigation and hand down “strong sanctions”.

FA chief executive James Johnson is due to address the media on Sunday morning, as is Victory managing director Caroline Carnegie. Victory apologised on Saturday night.

An FA spokesperson said the game’s governing body would use the full force of their regulatory and disciplinary powers in this investigation.

They said there were a lot of people coming forward to Victoria Police to help with identifying individuals.

“Enough is enough,” the spokesperson said.

It is unclear what the situation means for plans for Victory’s A-League Women team to play Newcastle and Western United to host Western Sydney at AAMI Park on Sunday.

On Saturday night, both sets of fans had planned to walk out at the 20-minute mark as part of a protest towards the Australian Professional Leagues’ decision to sell the next three grand finals to Sydney, and had been throwing flares.

But the situation escalated when a flare hit and injured a Network 10 cameraman, then exploded when Glover picked up another flare off the ground and threw it back into the stands.

Fans then rushed the pitch and one threw the metal bucket, which hit Glover, who was concussed and required stitches, and King, who had a head gash.

The game was suspended for approximately 45 minutes then abandoned.

The incident was condemned throughout Australian football, with Matildas captain and Chelsea superstar Sam Kerr writing on Twitter it was a “very sad day for football in Aus”.

“Our game is in tatters. An absolute disgrace what happened tonight,” Socceroos and Central Coast goalkeeper Danny Vukovic said on Twitter.

“Irreparable damage done. Darkest day for football in Australia.”

Tweet from @vuka20

Former Adelaide United striker and current Network 10 pundit Bruce Djite told AAP it was hard to see how Australian football could recover and said FA needed to “throw the library at Melbourne Victory.”

A group of Victory fans hurled glass bottles and abuse at Matildas goalkeeper Teagan Micah when she was playing against them for City in January 2021.

Micah wasn’t surprised by the latest incident and said all she’d received was an “apology”.

“Melbourne Victory continues to ALLOW their fans to get away with this behaviour!” she said.

“It’s a disgrace!!”