San Diego FC bans 33 from all matches after violent brawls in stadium stands during LA Galaxy visit
Associated Press
San Diego FC has issued indefinite bans to 33 people who apparently participated in a violent brawl after the club's match against the LA Galaxy at Snapdragon Stadium last weekend.
The expansion San Diego club announced Friday that the fans are prohibited from attending home and away matches. The club will work with law enforcement and Major League Soccer to enforce the bans, and further action could be taken.
"The behavior exhibited by these individuals is entirely unacceptable and does not reflect who we are as a club," San Diego FC said in a statement. 'We seek to create matchdays that are safe, welcoming and respectful environments for all fans. Snapdragon Stadium officials have assured us that they will enhance security protocols to ensure safety at stadium events.'
A prolonged, vicious brawl broke out in the stands following San Diego's dramatic 2-1 victory over the Galaxy on May 24. Much of the fighting was particularly dangerous because it occurred in the front row of the upper deck of the Snapdragon stands, with some of the combatants coming perilously close to tumbling over the railing.
Even more fights occurred later in the stadium's parking lots, according to fans who posted video on social media.
'We want an atmosphere that is passionate, inclusive, and secure – where everyone in San Diego feels proud to come together as one community to celebrate the game we love,' the club statement continued. 'There is no place for violence in our sport.'
The brawls were yet another chapter of dismaying fan behavior during San Diego's inaugural season, which has been a big success on the field. The club currently sits second in MLS' Western Conference at 8-5-3.
Fights also broke out at Snapdragon in April when Los Angeles FC visited, with social media video showing men with their faces covered fighting each other, police officers and security guards.
San Diego FC's inaugural home match on March 1 was marred by three occurrences of the infamous homophobic chant frequently heard at the Mexican national team's soccer matches. The club condemned the chants and implored fans to stop.
San Diego hosts Austin FC on Saturday.
___
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/soccer in this topic
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indianapolis Star
30 minutes ago
- Indianapolis Star
'We should beat him': Kyle Kirkwood's win gives Andretti Global confidence it can beat Alex Palou
DETROIT — Kyle Kirkwood started to crack a wide smile, but the Andretti Global driver quickly caught himself. A driver sailing into the wall on a late-race restart while trailing the car that would eventually finish third isn't a laughing matter, but then again, being on the wrong side of the better part of three months of Alex Palou's nearly unceasing domination of the 2025 IndyCar campaign has left the championship leader's rivals with in peculiar emotional spot. Do you step back and appreciate the history you're witnessing — a start to an IndyCar season not duplicated since 1979? Do you let the Chip Ganassi Racing Driver's five wins in six starts, including his first Indianapolis 500, agitate you to no end? Do you do your best to ignore it and shrug off references to a triple-digit championship gap while nearly every week getting asked questions about it again and again? And so when Kirkwood was asked whether his strategist Bryan Herta told the eventual Detroit Grand Prix race-winner over the radio that Palou had crashed out of Sunday's action on a Lap 72 restart — to no fault of the Ganassi driver's own — Kirkwood began to smile, as he said, 'No he didn't, but I knew it.' 'I shouldn't be smiling thinking that, but I knew that he crashed, and I knew we needed to capitalize on some points today, given the outcome for him,' Kirkwood continued. 'I feel bad for him, but this also does help us a lot with the points.' For weeks, if not months, Palou's rivals had been trying their darndest to speak into the existence of Palou's IndyCar reign — frankly not knowing what else to do as the Chip Ganassi Racing No. 10 team, led by lead engineer Julian Robertson, crew chief Ricky Davis and strategist Barry Wanser, made the right calls at every turn, executed flawless pit stops at every opportunity and engineered a speedy race car at all sorts of circuits — all with a three-time series champion in the cockpit to boot. And yet, as Palou learned the hard way during his first championship run at World Wide Technology Raceway, sometimes chaos can creep up behind you and tag you at a moment's notice with a simple lock of a trailing car's tires. 'Time will tell. You don't know if this run ends this weekend or next weekend or the weekend after. You have no idea,' fourth-place championship challenger Christian Lundgaard said Friday in Detroit. 'But you guys know as well as we do that (Palou's) run is going to end at some point. He can't win the rest of the races for the rest of this life. 'But the smallest little bit of contact, and he's out of the race. It could be his fault or not, and that can end his streak.' That's precisely how Palou's 112-point championship lead on Pato O'Ward, who finished third in the Indy 500 but lost 15 points on the runaway championship leader, shrunk back to double digits at 90 points at the checkered flag of the Detroit Grand Prix, despite a rather lackluster race weekend from the young Mexican driver that saw O'Ward only finish seventh. And it's how Kirkwood, who at the checkered flag of last weekend's 500 appeared to be trailing Palou by 126 points, only for a post-race tech inspection failure to widen that gap to 150, now sits 102 points back after his second win of the year, still as IndyCar's only non-Palou race winner through seven of 17 events this year. A race that had featured two instances of loose wheel-induced crashes and a beef-sparking spin was set to restart with just under 30 laps to go, following a caution to clear Callum Ilott's mangled No. 90 Prema Racing Chevy off the track. To their incredibly good fortune, Santino Ferrucci, Kyffin Simpson and Marcus Armstrong had pitted from 15th, 16th and 19th, respectively, just a couple laps before Ilott's day would come to an end, leaving the trio in the catbird seat as the other 22 cars dove into the pits, leaving them suddenly running 1-2-3 on equal strategy to the rest of the field, forced to fend off a hard-charging pack of five cars that had run up at the front virtually the entire day, but instead of first through fifth, now occupied fourth through eighth. Back to the Motor City: IndyCar to return to Detroit Grand Prix for at least 3 more years Whether or not they leapfrogged the new cars ahead or not, Kirkwood, Will Power and Colton Herta (who ran 1-2-3 before the caution and 4-5-6 at the time of the restart) were in line at the moment to make up some chunk of points on Palou, who sat seventh in line at the time of the return to green flag racing, but whether that bite out of Palou's lead would be meaningful or marginal would depend on how effective a sprint to the finish they'd go on to make. 'We had to pass some cars out there,' Kirkwood said. 'It was some low-percentage moves, I'm not going to lie, that I made. But you have to on street courses.' One corner after a return to green-flag racing, not a low-percentage move, but locked up tires from the car trailing behind of AJ Foyt Racing's David Malukas sent the No. 4 Chevy skidding into the back of Palou and ended with the No. 10 in the tires and Palou's day done down in 25th. 'It's very unfortunate after an amazing recovery this weekend when we didn't have much pace,' Palou told the Fox broadcast after being released from the infield care center. 'It doesn't feel great, but there's not much we could've done there.' As he cycled around and saw the AMR Safety Team trucks flanking the yellow and red machine of the championship leader, Kirkwood said he didn't so much change his focus, but he realized this even deeper: 'I need to win this race," he said. 'I'd known that anywhere we ended up toward the front that we were going to have a good points day, and that was going to help us a lot.' Notably, O'Ward, Lundgaard (fourth in the championship, eighth in Sunday's race) and Felix Rosenqvist (sixth in the championship, 21st in Sunday's race after a late crash) weren't his direct late-race competitors, which made the precise spot Kirkwood finished less of a major hang-up. And yet, IndyCar's proverbial street course king — winner of four of IndyCar's last 11 street races — motored up to the front for what was a relatively comfortable victory by the checkered flag, even after weathering a late-race red flag that bunched back up the field behind Kirkwood with 12 laps to go. 'I'm fine with that,' Kirkwood said, when asked about the importance of both his win and Palou's DNF that handed the championship leader just five points compared to Kirkwood's 53. 'It's super important, but we've got to keep doing it. 'As we know (Palou) can skip out on still a handful more races and be absolutely fine. It's unfortunate for him that he ended up in the wall, but it actually helps us a lot in the championship. It puts us …' And then reality set in for Kirkwood, as he was clarified of the massive undertaking that still lies ahead with 10 races to go. '102 points? That's still a mile away, but it puts you back in a position where you feel like you might be able to get that back,' he continued. 'But I'm sure we're going to go to road courses, and Palou is going to do his thing. So we'll see what happens.' First is a stop at World Wide Technology Raceway, perhaps a proving ground for an Andretti Global group that increasingly over last year has found race-winning short oval pace that had been missing from the team for years. Down the stretch a year ago, Herta found himself in the thick of the fight during a late-race restart, and at the next couple ovals on the calendar, the No. 26 driver would log a podium (The Milwaukee Mile) and his first oval win (Nashville Superspeedway), while Kirkwood took pole in the Nashville finale and found himself disappointed in fourth place by race's end. Palou, though, finished 3-for-6 on short oval top 5s in 2024 and now can call himself an IndyCar oval winner after the 500, and at the two races that follow next on the calendar, Road America and Mid-Ohio, the Spaniard has logged seven top-4 finishes in eight combined starts during his CGR tenure, including three wins and a sweep of the two-race stretch in 2023. As Kirkwood pointed out, super-abrasive road courses like The Thermal Club, Barber Motorsports Park and the IMS road course, a trio that Palou swept in 2025, are done for 2025, and the Andretti Global camp feels relatively confident in their increasingly competitive traditional IndyCar road course package. But already with five wins in seven starts in 2025, with four tracks left where Palou has won before in his still relatively young IndyCar career, it's pertinent to capitalize massively on any other days like Sunday. 'We've just got to get back to our winning ways,' Kirkwood said. 'Because we can't let him win any more races.' Added Herta earlier this weekend: 'I know we can beat (Palou). I know if we do all the right stuff, we have a really good chance to beat him, and we should beat him if we do everything the right way.
2 hours ago
Fire in a drug rehabilitation center in violence-plagued Mexican state kills 12, authorities say
MEXICO CITY -- A fire in a drug rehabilitation center in the violence-plagued Mexican state of Guanajuato killed 12 people and injured at least three others, authorities said Sunday. The fire broke out early Sunday in the town of San Jose Iturbe, where the municipal government said it was still investigating what caused the deadly blaze. 'We express our solidarity with the families of those who have been killed while they tried to overcome addictions,' the municipal government said in a statement, adding that it will help to pay for the funeral expenses of those killed. Mexican media outlets reported that the victims of the fire had been locked up inside the rehab center. Mexico's privately run drug rehabilitation centers are often abusive, clandestine, unregulated and underfunded. They have been the targets of similar attacks in the past. The industrial and agricultural state of Guanajuato has for years been the scene of a bloody turf battle between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and a local gang, the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel. Guanajuato has the highest number of homicides of any state in Mexico. Mexican drug gangs have killed suspected street-level dealers from rival gangs sheltering at rehab facilities in the past. In 2020, gunmen shot to death 27 people at rehab center in another city in Guanajuato, Irapuato. In 2010, 19 people were killed in an attack on a rehab center in Chihuahua, a city in northern Mexico. More than a dozen other attacks on such facilities occurred in the decade between those massacres.
Fox Sports
3 hours ago
- Fox Sports
Phoenix visits Minnesota after Collier's 24-point game
Associated Press Phoenix Mercury (5-2, 3-2 Western Conference) at Minnesota Lynx (7-0, 6-0 Western Conference) Minneapolis; Tuesday, 8 p.m. EDT BOTTOM LINE: Minnesota Lynx faces the Phoenix Mercury after Napheesa Collier scored 24 points in the Minnesota Lynx's 86-75 victory against the Golden State Valkyries. Minnesota finished 30-10 overall and 14-6 in Western Conference games a season ago. The Lynx shot 44.8% from the field and 38.0% from 3-point range last season. Phoenix finished 19-21 overall last season while going 10-10 in Western Conference action. The Mercury averaged 81.5 points per game while shooting 43.9% from the field and 32.6% from deep last season. INJURIES: Lynx: None listed. Mercury: Kahleah Copper: out (knee), Natasha Mack: out (back). ___ The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
