Hungary FA blame England for crowd troubles at Wembley
By Tom Gott
The Hungarian FA have accused their English counterparts of playing a role in the ugly scenes in the crowd during Tuesday's meeting between the two nations.
Within the first five minutes of the match, the travelling Hungary fans: booed England's decision to take the knee, held up a banner protesting said decision and clashed with police after a steward was allegedly targeted by a racially insensitive comment.
It has since been revealed by The Telegraph that a handful of fans in the Hungarian end were in fact Polish hooligans looking to cause trouble, and the Hungarian FA have blamed England for not monitoring who was buying their tickets.
While Hungary have accepted they were responsible for selling the tickets, they have accused the English FA of providing them with a ticket link which did not restrict who could access it or share it, suggesting the link had found its way into the hands of the wrong crowd from both Hungary and Poland.
When asked how this could have happened, a spokesperson from the Hungarian FA said: “That is really a question for the English FA. We were just provided with a link.”
This was no mistake from England. The FA's policy is not to screen fans for matches at Wembley and they always offer visiting nations a link to purchase away tickets, which is usually well-received unless the opponent have their own membership programs.
The FA are not expected to change their policy and will continue to offer away fans the same facilities for upcoming fixtures.
However, they will work with the police to determine whether added security will be needed inside Wembley when Albania come to town in November, with some concerned that Polish supporters may try and hijack the ticket link once again.
Hungary are currently serving stadium bans issued by both FIFA and UEFA, with the former stemming from the meeting between England and Hungary in September, in which Raheem Sterling and Jude Bellingham were racially abused.
They were hit with a two-match stadium ban, the second of which was suspended, but FIFA are investigating whether they need to activate that ban because of these latest issues.