Can Clubs Be Responsible For Away Supporters?

There was little Mike Ashley could do to quell the protests at the Hull City game, and he even took the drastic measure of staying at home!

So if a club cannot control the actions of its 'home' support, what chance have they when those fans travel away?

Is that the responsibility of the home club?

This comes to light following Pompey's promised to Sol Campbell they will support him if he wants action to be taken against the fans who verbally abused him when Tottenham visited Fratton Park on Sunday.

But the options appear to be limited after police who were in charge of security at the game passed on their own complaints about the chanting fans to the Football Association, urging domestic football's governing body to deal with them in an "appropriate manner" - only for the FA to respond by claiming that it was a police responsibility.

It would now take an official complaint by Portsmouth to the FA to raise the possibility of any charge against Tottenham, and Pompey were initially reluctant to do so.

But it appears that Campbell has been so taken aback by the severity of the abuse that he may try to investigate whether there is any possible redress.

Hampshire Police opted not to make individual arrests for fear of sparking a riot.

Their spokesperson said: "Normally we, with the help of club stewards, would at least issue warnings to obvious ringleaders and that is usually enough to nip this kind of thing in the bud.

"But on this occasion, the number of people involved was just too huge and our officers were not sure we had sufficient resources present to deal with further problems that might have evolved."