Football is no longer a beautiful game

I CANNOT for the life of me understand why it is necessary to have an inquiry into what happened at Old Trafford last Saturday, which led to Manchester United’s fixture against Liverpool to be postponed, and resulted in two police officers being injured – one of whom was slashed with a bottle.

We all know what happened – hundreds of soccer hooligans invaded the pitch, behaving like thugs. All the authorities need to do is examine CCTV footage, identify and prosecute the ringleaders and punish everyone who can be identified with a minimum ban of five years from attending any sporting event.

A beautiful game? Maybe once.

But with every year that passes professional football becomes less of a sport and more of an ugly business.

We don’t see this kind of thuggery at other sporting events.

Robert Readman

Bournemouth