Eight people were arrested and one person hospitalized after fans of the Spartak Moscow soccer team clashed with riot police inside the stadium of host FC Rostov in the eponymous city of Rostov-on-Don.
A group of Spartak fans were cordoned off after the match in a tight section of the stadium concourse after pyrotechnics were set off during the game, with some of the projectiles having targeted game stewards, the Russian Premier League said in a statement.
Afterwards, a section of the fans were confronted by OMON riot police and clashes erupted.
Spartak condemned the incident, blaming the police for employing “heavy-handed” force in a statement.
“The club is outraged by the actions of…law-enforcement officials, which resulted in the massive use of brute force on the part of the riot police [against] often innocent citizens, among them women,” Spartak said.
In turn, the Russian Premier League said that it was satisfied with how police reacted.
It said that the fans who “fired the pyrotechnics” were detained during a “police operation” to identify the “culprits.”
Fans tried to prevent the police from detaining them, the Premier League’s statement said.
The Russian Football Union has told the Sport-Express newspaper that it is calling for an investigation and that "this kind of situation should not be repeated at stadiums,” the Associated Press reported.
