Mayor warns PSV and FC fans to behave during match, otherwise no more spectators allowed
The mayor of Utrecht, Sharon Dijksma, warns fans of PSV and FC Utrecht that they better behave themselves on Sunday. If the atmosphere surrounding the match between the football clubs gets out of hand, they will play their next match without an audience, Dijksma threatened.
The mayor is referring to the report that the police were able to prevent a confrontation between hooligans from the two clubs in the neighboring municipality of Maarssen on Friday evening. Six men aged between 22 and 30 from Utrecht and the Stichtse Vecht were arrested and weapons were also seized.
"Tomorrow is the match between FC Utrecht and PSV. This match would be better without intervention from the riot police. Otherwise, as far as I am concerned, the next match between the clubs in Utrecht will be without an audience. There are limits to what we can accept. And the prevented brawl, in which even striking weapons were confiscated, has already far exceeded those limits," Dijksma said on Saturday evening.
The PSV can obtain a special record in the away match against FC Utrecht on Sunday. The Eindhoven team will go to the Galgenwaard stadium for the eighteenth victory in a row in the competition.
Only one team managed to win the first seventeen league matches in the Eredivisie. That was also PSV, in the 1987/1988 season. Under the leadership of coach Guus Hiddink, the Brabanders lost their first points in the 18th round against FC Twente (2-2). PSV won the European Cup 1, the national title, and the KNVB Cup that season.
PSV has won its last twelve away matches in the Eredivisie and can now equal the record for consecutive away wins. That record was also achieved by PSV itself. Between December 2015 and September 2016, the current leader won 13 league matches in a row outside Eindhoven.
Reporting by ANP