Anfield witnessed a memorable night in the history of the club as Liverpool cruised to a 2-0 advantage over Manchester United in the first leg of the UEFA Europa League round-of-16 game.
With a goal a piece from Daniel Sturridge and Roberto Firminho, the Reds now have a comfortable cushion and will face United in the return leg of the fixture at Old Trafford on the 18th of March.
However, the Manchester United supporters will try to forget about the fateful night not only because of the final scoreline but because of another shameful incident which had occurred during the course of the game. A section of the Red Devils supporters were accussed to singing offensive Hillborough chants that have been condemned by football fans all across the globe.
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The Hillsborough disaster is one of the biggest mishaps in the history of football which witnessed 96 deaths and 766 injuries.
A dark day in football
On 15 April 1989 the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield was chosen the Football Association as the neutral venue which would host the 1989 FA Cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forrest.
Soon after the kick off at 3 PM, the match had to be stopped because of a confusion that had been witnessed at the Leppings Lane stand which was allocated to the Liverpool supporters. In 1990, the Taylor Report conducted an official inquiry into the disaster which concluded, ‘The main reason for the disaster was the failure of police control.’
Coming back to yesterday's incident, former Liverpool forward Stan Collymore reprimanded the Manchester United fans on Twitter as he tweeted, “Those songs speak only for the people singing them.”
Later, while referring to the 1958 Munich air disaster, in which 23 people died, including eight United footballers, he added, “Anyone singing about either tragedy associated to either club and doesn’t represent majority of fans or clubs themselves. Simple.”
David Prentice, the sports editor of Liverpool Echo, who was present last night at Anfield was among the many others to speak out over the vile chants as well.
The editor tweeted, “Manchester United fans let themselves down spectacularly with that chant. Plenty of saddened head shaking in the press box.”
There have been calls for UEFA to take action against the Manchester club following the social media outrage. The organisation has previously penalised clubs like Dynamo Kiev and CSKA Moscow on account of racism and fan hooliganism.
Here are a list of tweets by the disappointed football fans from across the globe that you should take a look at:
