Victory stirring the pot
Melbourne Victory Football Club wishes to express its disappointment at the unacceptable and inappropriate behaviour of some travelling Western Sydney Wanderers FC fans at AAMI Park on Saturday night.
With no incidents in the 11 rounds prior, Melbourne Victory has now implored Football Federation Australia (FFA) to take the strongest possible action, after flares and detonators were let off in the away supporter bay throughout Saturday night’s A-League fixture. Given the pending return of Western Sydney Wanderers on January 14, we believe significant sanctions and extensive planning are required to ensure there is no repeat of this behaviour.
Melbourne Victory’s absolute priority is, and always has been, to ensure football fans experience the safest and most enjoyable environment possible.
The club continues to support Victoria Police with its investigations and awaits a swift response from FFA.
While appreciating the difficulties that the Melbourne Victory Football Club are currently experiencing with its active supporter group remaining on strike because of irreconcilable differences, the Western Sydney Wanderers will not shy away from its full responsibility for the behaviour of any fan that can be directly linked to the club. We have every confidence that Melbourne Victory share these same views.
As evidence of its commitment to fan security and safety, the Western Sydney Wanderers had five senior staff travel to the match on Saturday to lend support to Melbourne Victory in any way possible with match day operations including fan behaviour.
The club reaffirms its full support of its 16,700 members who continue to set a new benchmark for fan support in any sporting code in the country and will not let the actions of an absolute minority stand in the way of this recognition. The 1,500 Wanderers fans in attendance at Saturday’s match who demonstrated exemplary behaviour is a greater reflection of the Club’s values and culture than the five or six individuals who chose to demonstrate completely unacceptable behaviour.
The club also further notes that it has a virtually unblemished record of fan behaviour at its matches this year and will be seeking to establish a co-operative and collaborative approach with the Melbourne Victory Football Club to better understand and identify what may have been the catalysts for the events of Saturday and in so doing identify the necessary preventive strategies to ensure that such events do not occur in the future.