Legia Conference after the events in Holland. “It was not an accident”

Thursday’s match in Alkmaar ended in a scandal unrelated to the events that took place on the field, as Legia lost to the local team Alkmaar 0:1. After the match, the police removed two of the Polish runner-up players – Portuguese Josue and Serbian Radovan Bankov – from the bus and took them to the police station. Both were not on the plane that left with the team for Poland after 10 a.m. on Friday.

Shortly after his arrival in Warsaw, the club called a special press conference, during which President Miodoski commented on the shocking events of the previous day. The meeting with journalists began with Legia spokesman Bartosz Zaslavski.

An hour after the start of the match, we were prevented from moving by closing some doors. The team was divided into two groups, some of whom were on the bus. Services were asked to open the door, but no one listened to us. The physical safety of players and staff was violated. Zaslavsky admitted that we do not understand the intentions of these actions and the rules for organizing this match.

Then Miodoski spoke.

-The match was supposed to be a celebration for us. There was no aggression during the match, neither on the field nor in the stands. Our fans behaved wonderfully. What happened an hour later seems unbelievable. “I came to the conclusion that it was not an accident, but something that is increasing,” the Legia Warsaw president said.

– You can feel the anti-Polish attitude. It all came from the words of the mayor, who said she did not want us in her city. That’s why fans were supposed to go to The Hague to get tickets. “It’s as if we asked their fans to go to Radom to buy tickets,” Miodoski added.

The President of Legia also commented on the situation with the arrest of Josue and Bankov.

– There were assault police standing there. They said they would riot on the bus and get them out. They know they exaggerated, and now they are creating a narrative that the aggression was in our favor. I never saw any of us hit a security guard. There were fights and there could have been downfalls. But they were not supervisors. It is not easy to move them. I don’t believe what the other party says. “I’ve seen and experienced it all myself,” Miodoski said.

– I am not aware of any case in which the team and employees were attacked by security and police. To say that we are to blame is a scandal in itself. (…) People from UEFA were not aware of what was happening. There’s no one around anymore. Security said they wanted to protect us from the crowd, but there was no one there. The European Union has learned everything from us, not from the host. He indicated that he is now working to release our players from detention because it is unacceptable.

– We will present testimonies and complaints from our side in Poland. He said that unfortunately, we cannot rely on the local police in the Netherlands to be reliable and objective in any way on this matter.

Bartosz Zaslavski was able to report that according to information from the Netherlands, the Portuguese had already been interrogated, while the Serbian had not yet been interrogated.

– I hope they return to us today or tomorrow at the latest. “On Sunday, we have a very important league match against Rakov Czestochowa and we want to play it,” Miodoski announced.

Earlier on Friday, Jaroslaw Jankowski, a member of the Warsaw club’s supervisory board, said the players were arrested “based on the testimony of the most active and aggressive security guard”, who, along with other security workers, behaved dangerously. towards the team members heading towards the bus, closing the door on them and pushing them.

– There was a situation where two players defended the coach who was pushed. Later, security guards tried to intervene against President Dariusz Miodoski, who was wearing a suit, and he was found to be responsible, according to Jankowski.

-We arrested two people on charges of assault. Dirk Berger, spokesman for the North Holland region police, said on Friday that it involved a 28-year-old man from Serbia and a 33-year-old man from Portugal.

As a result of their arrest, Josue and Bankov did not return with the team to Warsaw on Friday.