A TWEET shared hundreds of times claiming that police had arrested Rangers fans on route to Seville is false, it has been confirmed.
A Twitter account purporting to represent Seville’s local authority, named Junta Municipal de Sevilla with the username @SevillaENGE, claimed that three members of the “Onion [sic] Bears” had been arrested for “threatening behaviour” towards flight staff.
The tweet, written in Spanish, was accompanied by two photographs of a group of young men apparently being escorted out of an airport building and into police cars.
🚨BREAKING🚨: Las autoridades de la policía local identificaron y detuvieron a 3 miembros del grupo Blue Glasgow 'Onion Bears' por cargos de comportamiento amenazante hacia el personal de vuelo. Police authorities arrest and 3 members of Blue Glasgow faction. More to follow… pic.twitter.com/LZiR19KZy4
— Junta Municipal de Sevilla (@SevillaENGE) May 16, 2022
The account has more than 9000 followers and features a cover photo and profile picture referencing the city of Seville.
Tweets are also written in accurate Spanish, convincing many of those who viewed and shared them.
However in reality, the pictures used in the tweet were taken from articles published in 2019 about a group of Manchester United fans accused of going on a drunken rampage in Spain the year prior.
There was no evidence that fans had been arrested on route to Seville on Monday.
The @SevillaENGE account appears to have been tweeting as a representative body of Seville for 24 hours or so, including retweeting posts from the Spanish embassy and official account for Spain.
Users only need to scroll back to May 15 to find posts suggesting the account belongs to a Celtic fan, with tweets no longer appearing in Spanish and most tweets relating to the team or its players.
Rangers icons have been encouraging fans to behave while abroad in Seville after issues with crowds marred their 2008 European final.
Fans have been flying out over the last couple of days as the club will play Eintracht Frankfurt in the Europa League final on Wednesday night.
Speaking to supporters on the Rangers Twitter page, former manager Graham Souness said: “Hi guys, this is a message for everyone going to Seville. Go there, have a super time, support your team.
“Our team has done incredibly well in getting there, when you think the journey we've been on for the last 10 years to be now playing in a serious European cup final, it's a fantastic achievement. They've done their bit, now it's your turn.
“You have to turn up there, behave yourselves - have a party - but make sure you behave yourselves because you're going there as an ambassador for our football club, our great football club, the great Glasgow Rangers.”
