Rangers’ clash with Malmo in the Europa League has been labelled high risk by the Swedish club’s security chiefs after fans from their bitter rival club Helsingborgs bought tickets to support the Ibrox club.
Philippe Clement takes his Light Blues side to Scandinavia to start their campaign in the new-look format with an away game in Sweden on Thursday. Around 1,000 Rangers fans are expected to attend the game at the Eleda Stadion, but Swedish intelligence has indicated that supporters of Helsingborgs have bought tickets in the Malmo end to support Rangers, with whom they claim an affiliation.
The derby between the two clubs has long been a powderkeg fixture and in 2011 the match had to be abandoned after Helsingborg keeper Par Hansson was knocked down by a Malmo fan. And Malmo head of security Peter Narbe admitted he is concerned ahead of the match against Rangers. He said: “We know there is a friendship there between Helsingborgs fans and Rangers fans.
“There may be a risk that they want to present themselves in a negative way. We are aware of that. It is likely that there will be Helsingborgs supporters who have bought tickets in the home section. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re behaving badly, it is important to point out.”