Gareth Southgate condemns pre-match trouble involving England supporters and describes booing of Dutch national anthem as "unacceptable"
Saturday 24 March 2018 08:10, UK
Dutch Police arrested over 100 England fans for public order breaches around England's friendly against the Netherlands in Amsterdam.
Police confirmed to Sky Sports News the number detained for offences including public disorder had risen from 25 to 28 by early Friday evening, but the number quickly increased.
Police also confirmed one member of the police support team was injured while helping make an arrest.
The local police force posted a statement on their official Twitter account announcing the number taken into custody on Friday had risen to 90, bringing the total of England supporters arrested over the past two days to over 100.
England supporters have been detained for a range of drunken disturbance offences including throwing beer bottles at officers.
Gareth Southgate voiced his disappointment at the trouble in the Dutch capital and described the booing of the Dutch national anthem by a minority of England supporters as "unacceptable".
"I heard some of the booing of the anthem which is unacceptable," Southgate said in the post-match press conference.
"(Concerning the arrests) It's not something I want to hear and our players have represented their country well tonight and anything that takes away from that from their perspective is a great shame.
"Without knowing the details... obviously it's not something I want to hear because most of all for us, I think our players have represented their country really well tonight with pride and some style.
"So, anything else that takes away from that performance for them would be a great shame."
Riot police were deployed to the downtown area of the city to deal with the situation, after fans were filmed throwing beer over tourists riding boats along the canals.
Around 5,200 England fans had bought tickets through the official channels for the match in the Dutch capital but it is predicted up to double that number were in the city.
Almost 60 were detained after they were penned in by riot police in the red light district of the city, while a number of those in the ground booed the Dutch national anthem before kick-off.
Police refused to give a total number of their presence ahead of the game, but said there would be a visible police presence at the Amsterdam Arena and "large police presence" in the capital ahead of the kick-off at 20.45 local time.
The arrests come with fears fan trouble could be an issue during this summer's World Cup in Russia - following the clashes which occurred during Euro 2016.
