Football fans attack Mexican sailors in northern Poland?

Police try to break up fight in Gdynia: photo - radiogdansk.pl

Police spokesman Adam Gruzlewski has confirmed that interviews with suspects were continuing on Monday morning, in a bid to clarify what sparked the violence

Witnesses said that several hundred fans of football side Ruch Chorzow had been on the beach in the lead-up to a match on Sunday evening against local team Arka Gdynia.

“The fans were behaving in a terrible way,” one witness told Radio Gdansk.

“They were continually letting off fireworks and singing fascist songs,” he said.

“Of course, no one reacted.”

Another witness said that there were "thirty of them to one sailor.”

Other reports suggest that the Mexicans had attacked sunbathers and that no fans of Ruch Chorzow were involved.

The Mexicans had docked the ship Cuauatemoc at the city's harbour on the Baltic coast and a group of sailors gathered on the beach.

Violence with the fans broke out and, according to one witness, bottles were broken over the heads of the sailors.

One bystander said “no one arrived for fifty minutes.”

Police spokesman in Warsaw, Mariusz Sokołowski, has disputed reports police arrived so late, telling Polish Radio that they were at the scene, "within eight minutes”.

Some of the sailors declined medical assistance after ambulances arrived, saying they had their own doctors aboard the ship. (nh/pg)

See youtube video of police dealing with aftermath of fight between football fans and Mexican sailors