Six people have been arrested following fights that broke out in the hours before Manchester United’s game against Leeds United.
A scuffle broke out in Manchester city centre before the Old Trafford match at 12:30 BST.
Social media footage showed chairs and a bin thrown during this altercation, which resulted in five people being held on suspicion of public order offenses while one person was apprehended for drug-related crimes.
They said that the police have been coordinating their efforts with the two teams in order to identify the offenders.
It has been confirmed that six individuals have been detained by GMP over the course of the day, and all are currently in custody for questioning.
The arrests came after full-capacity crowds returned to Premier League games following the lockdown in March 2020.
Manchester United’s opening match of the season against Leeds was a landslide victory. They thrashed them 5-1.
Before the match, a horde of rampaging men ran down Deansgate. Some were caught throwing objects and punches as police tried to maintain control.
Chief Superintendent Stuart Ellison, from GMP, said that “despite isolated incidents of disorder in the city centre prior to kick-off, today’s events at Old Trafford largely passed without police incident”.
He thanked members of the public, adding that “today was an important day for a lot of people with the return of capacity crowds at venues that have remained absent for such a long time”.
The atmosphere was electric in Old Trafford as the Manchester United team took to the field. BBC Sport correspondent Simon Stone said there had been a “welcome buzz around Old Trafford”.
“Some pretty terrible images on social media suggests there has been some trouble in the city centre but far more fans are in this stadium now, waiting for the action to begin,” he added.
The players from both teams took a knee before the game in their anti-racism campaign and then held a minute of silence for those who have died with coronavirus.
