ZAGREB, 11 August, 2022 - A Hajduk Split football fan was arrested in the northern Portuguese city of Guimarães on Wednesday night for attacking a television cameraman after a Europa Conference League qualifying match with the home side Vitoria.
Vitoria won 1-0, but failed to qualify for the play-off because it had lost 1-3 in Split a week ago.
After leaving the stadium, a group of Hajduk supporters lunged at a television cameraman, and police used truncheons, tear gas and rubber bullets, footage from the Portuguese Sport TV channel shows.
The fan who attacked the TVI/CNN reporter has been arrested and will be brought before an investigating magistrate on Thursday, a reporter with CNN Portugal said.
Several vehicles with Croatian number plates were damaged in a car park next to the railway station in the nearby city of Trofa, the O Jogo sports newspaper reported. A photograph showed a white van with Split number plates with its windows smashed and another van and a car with punctured tyres.
The night before the match, the police stopped five buses with Hajduk fans en route to Porto. On board were 154 persons, including 122 Croatian nationals, 23 Portuguese nationals, and nine nationals of other countries. They were stopped after rioting in the streets of Guimarães.
In Guimarães, around 10.30 pm on Tuesday, about 100 people, most with their faces masked and dressed in black, threw flares and chairs at people sitting on the terraces of cafes, sending them fleeing in fear.
No one was hurt, and no one reported any property damage the next morning, police said. All 154 fans travelling on buses were released after identification. Police found a smoke bomb, a knuckleduster, and a ski mask on them.
The sports newspapers Record and O Jogo quoted the Ministry of the Interior as saying that the Hajduk fans were joined by supporters of at least one Portuguese football fan group and that the incidents in Guimarães were planned. Record identified this group as No Name Boys, the supporters of Benfica Lisbon, who are friends with Hajduk's Torcida fans.
