Three away fans were arrested outside Orlando City Stadium after New York City FC’s 1-0 loss to OCSC on Sunday. An off-duty police officer working as private security for the game was briefly hospitalized for a knee injury allegedly sustained in a tussle with one or more of those away fans.
For a moment, forget what you’ve read the apocalyptic hellhole that is MLS Reddit, or on the various overlapping kangaroo courts of Soccer Twitter. Let’s bear witness to what the executive board of New York City FC’s largest fan organization, the Third Rail Supporters Club, wrote today about the various shameful incidents that came to pass last weekend in Florida, for which no single group comes off looking angelic:
TO Orlando City Soccer Club and New York City Football Club
On behalf of the membership of The Third Rail, we demand that Orlando City Soccer Club and New York City Football Club explain the lack of away supporter security protocols in place before, during, and after the March 5th 2017 match at Orlando City Stadium that led to 198 travelling NYCFC supporters being exposed to unacceptable levels of abuse and harm, in and around the stadium.