Four hundred and forty years ago, almost to the day, Malta emerged victorious in the siege against the Turks. Yesterday, it was Maltese football which was under siege as some Croatian fans spoiled the Maltese festa at Ta’ Qali with some violence never seen in any Maltese football stadium before.

Scenes witnessed at the end of yesterday’s match will go down in local football history as the worst ever. Thankfully, it was not the Maltese fans who created that shambles.

It was a small number of the about 500 Croatian fans in the ‘Valletta side’ of the football ground Enclosure.

As the final whistle was blown by the Greek official, they started ripping off the seats and throwing them on to the other section, which included the VIP sector.

Some seats also landed close to where MFA President Dr Joseph Mifsud, who is also a member of the UEFA executive committee, stood together with other members of the MFA’s Executive Committee. Also present was Minister for Competitiveness and Communications Censu Galea, who was also lightly hit by one of the flying seats and had to be treated for a slight injury.

It could be called “The battle of the seats” as a few Maltese fans also retaliated and started throwing back the broken seats.

There were injuries on both sides, mostly on the Maltese side, but none of them proved to be serious, though someone said that at least one person was hospitalised.

It was a night of shame for these Croatian hooligans, obviously disappointed that such a tiny nation had provided them with what was probably the biggest setback of their lives.

No one ever imagined throughout the whole 90 minutes that the match would have finished in such a shambles.

The few policemen on duty were clearly outnumbered. Suffice it to say that just three officers were among the Croatians. When these police officers were beaten up – it was here that the fracas started – and joined their counterparts in the VIP section, the Croatian hooligans had all the seats in their area ‘at their mercy’.

The first batch of SAG personnel unfortunately arrived at Ta’ Qali some 40 minutes after the match had finished and could do little before more of their colleagues arrived some time later. When tear gas was about to be thrown among the Croatians to disperse them – most of whom were not guilty – calm finally returned to the stand as those hooligans (who were probably also drunk), retreated.

Later, they were escorted out of the stadium in small groups – among them were the Under 21 squad (who apparently had nothing to do with the incidents).

When I took a look at the ‘Valletta side’ of the Enclosure from the Press Box, it appeared that around 200 seats, if not more, had been ripped out of their places.

One sincerely hopes that the FIFA Commissioner for the match will forward a strongly worded report so that the expenses of the damage caused to the Stadium will be borne by the perpetrators of these incidents, that is, the hooligans from Croatia.

MFA President Joe Mifsud said it was now the responsibility of the FIFA Commissioner to report the incidents to FIFA, as this is a World Cup match.

“They have ruined our festa”, said a tearful Dr Joe Mifsud. “We never imagined such a scenario considering that there was absolutely no animosity among the players on the field of play. It is a great pity. It should have been celebrating a glorious day for Maltese football. Yet, just look what they did to us, apart from causing so much damage to this part of the Stadium,” he said.Splendid Wellman Malta’s great hero