Brescia football club were relegated to Serie C for the first time in 38 years on Thursday evening. In the second leg of the Serie B playout they drew 1-1 at home against Cosenza, after losing 1-o in the first leg in Calabria. Cosenza’s equalizing goal, which decided the match, was scored in the fourth minute of added time, therefore with the game now over. Shortly after, the Brescian supporters started throwing smoke bombs and other objects onto the pitch to stop the match, which actually happened. From there riots were born which continued for a long time, both inside and outside the Rigamonti stadium.
There have been clashes and charges between supporters and the police, attempted attacks on away Cosenza fans, who were only able to leave the stadium after one in the morning, and damage to clubs and vehicles parked nearby. A footballer’s car was set on fire and the Brescia newspaper writes that another player would be threatened with a knife. Nine people were injured.
Brescia had been divided between Serie A and Serie B for 38 years. In particular, between the 1990s and 2000s, it was one of the best-known so-called “provincial” teams in the Italian championship, best remembered for being Roberto Baggio’s last team, but also other big names such as Andrea Pirlo, Luca Toni, Pep Guardiola and Carlo Mazzone, the coach with whom he played the 2001 Intertoto Cup final against Paris Saint-Germain.
Brescia had mostly spent the last decade in Serie B, albeit with very mixed results and a relegation avoided only thanks to a repechage. During this time the team has changed ownership several times. In 2014 the historic president Gino Corioni – who died in 2016 at the age of 78 – sold the company to the Profida group. In 2017 it was then sold again to the Sardinian entrepreneur Massimo Cellino, former president and owner of Cagliari and Leeds United, still in office.
#bresciacosenza #playout fans of #Brescia……no comment …!!! pic.twitter.com/4OWcZ1zvyu
— John (@John02443943) June 1, 2023
With Cellino, Brescia returned to Serie A in 2019 but only stayed there for a year. In the last three seasons they have finished the Serie B championship in seventh, fifth and this year in sixteenth place in the standings. With this last placement he had avoided direct relegation, but not the playouts then lost between the round trip against Cosenza.
After the clashes on Thursday evening, Serie B president Mauro Balata wrote in a statement: «Our category has always stood out for the absence of aggression and discrimination. I feel defeated, I ask myself, and I think we all have to do it, as to why situations of such violence can occur”. The prefect of Brescia Maria Rosaria Laganà said that the identifications of those responsible for the unrest are underway, in which members of the southern curve of Milan, which has long been associated with the Brescia one, would also have participated.
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