There were shocking scenes in Brazilian football on Saturday after a knife was thrown onto the field of play during a pitch invasion in an U20 match.
The incident occurred in the closing stages of the Copa Sao Paulo de Futebol Junior semi-final between Sao Paulo and Palmeiras.
Sao Paulo were trailing 1-0 in injury time at the end of the match when several supporters ran onto the pitch to confront the Palmeiras players.
Several Sao Paulo players were forced to hold back their own supporters, with one fan managing to reach the Palmeiras players.
The referee was seen picking up a small black knife, which had been thrown from the stands into the penalty area – narrowly missing the players.
The match was suspended for roughly six minutes before resuming, with Palmeiras eventually winning 1-0.
DRADE (Police Station for Repression of the Crimes of Sports Intolerance) officer Cesar Saad confirmed an investigation had been launched to determine how the knife had passed security checks at the stadium.
He said: "In stoppage time, two fans invaded the pitch, one of them went up and physically attacked a Palmeiras athlete, and the second fan who practiced the invasion was contained by the Sao Paulo players themselves.
"At the same moment, some objects were thrown into the field.
"We tried to identify images from the press and fans, the stadium cameras and after a lot of analysis, listening to referees and athletes, we realised that along with the other objects, the knife was thrown on the lawn.
"Initially we thought that one of the fans would have invaded to try to attack a Palmeiras player with this knife.
"The referees themselves called me in the referees' locker room and showed an image that is circulating in WhatsApp groups and the press where it shows the knife along with other objects being thrown.
"It is obvious that it is up to the Civil Police to find out how this knife ended up inside the stadium, who did the search, how it was done, which gate the fan entered.
"Everything will be investigated by the police.
"It looks like the knife is inside a lunch box and when it is thrown, it opens and the knife jumps out.
"This was shown to the Palmeiras athletes, to the Palmeiras football director who saw the images at the police station and everyone could see that the fans who invaded the pitch, who are being punished by the Civil Police, were not in possession of this knife."
Rory O'Callaghan