Uefa have charged Manchester United and Liverpool following disturbances at Thursday night’s Europa League game at Old Trafford.
Liverpool reached the quarter-finals 3-1 on aggregate after a 1-1 draw in the second leg but the tie was marred by some ugly fan behaviour during both games.
United have been charged over crowd disturbances, the throwing of objects and stairways being blocked. Liverpool have been charged over illicit chants, setting off fireworks, throwing of objects, crowd disturbances and arriving late for kick-off.
Greater Manchester Police made five arrests and said they were investigating a “handful of concerning incidents”.
Superintendent Jim Liggett said: “The policing operation for the Manchester United v Liverpool match has now come to an end and towards the end of the game there were a handful of concerning incidents which are currently being investigated. We have made a total of five arrests.”
Earlier police were called to remove a banner with the word “murderers” tied to a sheet on a bridge over the M602 in Salford, just a couple of miles from Old Trafford.
During last week’s first leg at Anfield, won 2-0 by Liverpool, a number of offensive chants in reference to the Hillsborough tragedy in which 96 Liverpool fans died, were sung by a significant numbers of the travelling United support.
Liverpool are also looking into claims youth team player Jordan Williams mocked the Munich air disaster during last night’s match.
A tweet sent from the 20-year-old academy graduate Jordan Williams Twitter account, depicted an aeroplane emoji and pair of hands clapping.
In 1958 eight United players were among 23 who died in a plane crash at Munich airport.
The tweet was quickly deleted and Williams later apologised, claiming his account had been hacked.
“My Twitter has been hacked, I would never put anything like that to offend anyone, sorry about this,” he wrote.
