Shocking footage has emerged of the moment a band of hooded thugs supporting Italian football team Atalanta attacked the hotel lobby where Rangers fans were staying last night.
Clips shared to social media showed how a horde of balaclava-clad ultras descended on the lobby of the Eden Hotel in the heart of Lisbon, baying for blood as they smashed against the windows brandishing batons and sticks.
For a moment it looked as though the tension would dissipate as a security guard stationed at the lobby fought to lock the automatic doors and prevent the Italian gang from gaining access to the building.
But seconds later the Italians turned their tails and fled as furious Scotsmen sporting Rangers strips streamed out of the hotel, chasing the Atalanta supporters into the nearby Rossio Square – one of the main plazas in central Lisbon.
The violence escalated immediately as both sets of hardcore fans erupted into a huge fistfight.
Footage taken by horrified onlookers showed how one thug was cornered and beaten mercilessly until he collapsed in a heap.
Other groups clashed mere feet away, throwing chairs and metal railings at each other and exchanging punches with brutal intent.
Clips shared to social media showed how a horde of balaclava-clad ultras descended on the lobby of the Eden Hotel in the heart of Lisbon
A crowd of dozens of fans surround the entrance to the Rangers fans’ hotel
Rangers fans streamed out of the hotel and chased after the Italian thugs
The masked thugs beat one another mercilessly in Lisbon’s Rossio Square
The fighting extended round the block until police descended on the scene and forced the thugs to disperse
Rangers fans are in Lisbon ahead of their team’s match against Benfica in the UEFA Europa League round of 16 tonight.
Atalanta meanwhile played Sporting Lisbon in a hotly contested match last night which ultimately ended in a tense 1-1 draw.
It is unclear why the two sides’ travelling fans clashed in such a violent manner, given they were not scheduled to play each other.
But dystopian clips displayed the huge scale of the attack with both sides piling dozens of bodies into the fight.
Hooligans.cz, an online site dedicated to following and documenting instances of football hooliganism, reported that several members of the Atalanta collective were injured in the fight.
Quoting a source from Rangers’ ‘Union Bears’ fan group, Hooligans.cz wrote on X: ‘Atalanta show up and attack outside hotel, more Rangers come down from rooms and after back and forward for a few minutes Rangers chase the full Atalanta group and a few Atalanta get injured and left behind.
‘Respect to Atalanta for the attack but win Rangers.’
The wail of sirens can be heard approaching the scene in clips of the fighting, and the legions of ultras were ultimately dispersed when Portuguese police arrived at the scene.
It comes as an expert warned MailOnline that a ‘lockdown generation’ of young thugs is fuelling a rise in football hooliganism across the UK.
Geoff Pearson, a professor of law at the University of Manchester and one of the UK’s foremost authorities on football hooliganism, said some of the trouble can be traced back to lockdown.
He said boys attending games for the first time usually go with relatives or older friends, who help set the boundaries of acceptable behaviour before they go alone with peers of a similar age when they are more mature.
But Dr Pearson said lockdown had stripped out this crucial formative step for a generation of youngsters.
‘If you think of how fan communities work when you don’t have lockdowns, young fans go with family members, who at points will make interventions and draw the line about what is acceptable,’ he told MailOnline.
‘During lockdown these young fans were set at home.
‘So you had a sudden rush of young, new fans rushing into stadiums at the same time.
‘Good policing relies on officers knowing fans, particularly away fans, which did not happen over lockdown.
‘We also lost a lot of experienced police and security officials. I suspect we’re still putting some of that back together.’
January’s Black Country derby between Wolves and West Brom had to be suspended for nearly 40 minutes after fighting broke out in the stands
Footage in February showed a mass brawl between Millwall and Southampton fans at Waterloo Station
Terrifying footage shows hooded men jumping over barriers at the busy stations
Trouble broke out between Chelsea and Liverpool fans at Box Park in Croydon last month
Football-related arrests stand at their highest level for nine years, with 2,264 arrests during the 2022-23 season
Football-related arrests stand at their highest level for nine years, with 2,264 arrests during the 2022-23 season, an increase of 66 on last year and the highest figure since 2013-14.
The figures for last year included arrests made in England and Wales relating to overseas matches and arrests for possession of Class A drugs for the first time.
There were 682 new football banning orders issued last season, an increase of 32 per cent compared to the 2021-22 campaign and the highest number issued since 960 in 2010-11.
Dr Pearson said: ‘Post-lockdown we had quite a significant uptick in violence and antisocial behaviour and the first season back after lockdown was probably the worst we’ve had in a decade.
‘I think it has settled down a little bit since that first uptick but we seem to still be a bit higher than we were prior to lockdown.’
January’s Black Country derby between Wolves and West Brom had to be suspended for nearly 40 minutes after fighting broke out in the stands.
West Brom defender Kyle Bartley intervened to remove his daughter from the stand where the trouble flared as his team-mates anxiously messaged family members. There were unconfirmed reports that players’ families had been spat at.
Scotland has also suffered outbreaks of football-related violence, with a Scottish League Two match between Stanraer and Clyde ending in chaos on February 10 as home supporters reportedly attacked their rivals with golf clubs.
But Dr Pearson added that even more severe football-related violence has been seen across the Continent, meaning the UK was by no means an outlier.
‘Countries like the Netherlands, France and Greece have been struggling with post-pandemic increases in disorder much more than we are,’ Dr Pearson said.
‘They’ve taken quite dramatic measures in Greece with matches behind closed doors. I’d say we’re actually better placed in this country because we’ve managed to maintain some continuity in the way we police matches.
‘And the police are adopting progressive measures rather than the regressive clampdown we see in the likes of Greece and France.’
