May’s craziest soccer fan brawl comes to us from the Colombian city of Cali, where Wednesday’s Copa Águila match between city rivals Deportivo Cali and América de Cali ended with hundreds of fans from both clubs clashing on the field. These aren’t your run-of-the-mill soccer fans either, but rather barristas–members of the barra bravas, each clubs’ most passionate and aggressive sects of fans involved.
The scuffles between both sets of fans actually began much earlier in the day, as supporters clashed out in the streets of Cali around 4PM, before heading into the stadium for the clásico. That initial pressure combined with a contentious game that saw two red cards–one for each side–finally bubbled over after the final whistle, leading to the massive field invasion and brawl.
It appears that the commotion starts in one of the upper level sections, where América fans, restrained by fences, are seen shouting at a section of Deportivo supporters on the other side. Eventually, the América contigent climbs the fence and all hell breaks loose, as seen above.
As a result of the field invasion and subsequent clash, police arrested a whopping 85 people and confiscated 51 knives. That’s on top of the 30 injured fans who were treated by emergency personnel, some with stab wounds while others suffered blunt force trauma.
In the aftermath, home team América released a statement regarding the incident, with club chairman Tulio Gómez seeming to place the blame on Deportivo’s fans, stating that “as long as América is the home team, we will not allow barras from the visiting teams.” He also asserted that “the violence ends with soccer.”