“Fury over aborted plans for a European soccer Super League boiled over on Sunday when protestors broke into Manchester United’s home stadium, Old Trafford, just hours before the team was due to face Liverpool in the English Premier League. The afternoon had begun with thousands of fans gathering outside – as other supporters had done recently at Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham – but took a chaotic turn as several hundred broke through security and barriers and reached the Old Trafford pitch. The target of their anger was the club’s owners, the Florida-based Glazer family, which had signed up Manchester United last month to join a breakaway Super League of elite clubs that fans saw as nothing more than a power play by greedy billionaires. Though the project collapsed in just 48 hours, the fiasco has re-ignited 16 years of animosity directed at the United owners” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Hundreds of fans appeared to break into Old Trafford with little resistance as they overwhelmed the security contingent a little more than two hours before the scheduled 4:30 p.m. match. Fans have not been allowed at Premier League matches this season because of the pandemic, and security on the scene appeared to be light. The protestors quickly reached the playing field inside the 76,000-seat stadium, where they set off flares and chanted for the Glazer family to sell off the club. One person could be seen making off with a corner flag. ‘Love United, Hate Glazer,’ read one popular sign among the protestors. ‘Apology not accepted,’ read another.”