Bratislava - More than 50 people were injured in nationalistic-fuelled violence at a football game in south-western Slovakia. Thirty-one people were arrested in Saturday's rioting - 18 fans for the home team in Dunajska Streda, one of the most important centres for Slovakia's ethnic Hungarian minority, and 13 from the away team from Bratislava, a police spokeswoman in Bratislava said.
Violence had been feared ahead of the championship game between AC Dunajska Streda and Slovan Bratislava as hundreds of football hooligans and neo-Nazis from Hungary were expected to travel to the match.
Nationalistic tensions have intensified between Hungary and Slovakia recently and have been fuelled by nationalists from both sides through provocative public statements.
Fanning the flames has been Slovakia's failure to meet its pledge to include Hungarian versions of place names in school textbooks used in ethnic Hungarian schools, disproportionate distribution of EU funds to ethnic Slovak and Hungarian schools in Slovakia and insults by Jan Slota, the head of the Slovak National Party, which is in the ruling coalition, against Hungarian Foreign Minister Kinga Goncz in which he likened her to Adolf Hitler.
Slovakian politicians have also long accused the Hungarian government of doing too little to combat right-wing extremists.
Police numbers were increased from 760 to 1,000 to provide security for the football match, which Bratislava won 4-0, but violence broke out between both sets of fans and with the police.
A police spokeswoman told the media that fans from the home team had hurled stones while internet forums accused police of targeting Hungarian fans.
The most serious injuries occurred in a crush of Hungarian fans that developed after a controversial police intervention, television reports said.
On Saturday night, right-wing Hungarian demonstrators assembled outside the Slovakian embassy in Budapest, some of whom threatened bloody revenge.
Slovakian Ambassador Juraj Migas said on Slovakian television that 500 to 600 protestors had gathered outside the embassy but Hungarian police had the situation under control.
