Football fans hurl rats at player during Brondby-Copenhagen derby

The derby between football teams Brondby and Copenhagen in Denmark’s Superliga on Monday saw home fans hurl dead rats at opposition players.

Brondby fans made their disdain for the opposition clear by throwing the dead rodents at Copenhagen defender Ludwig Augustinsson before he took a corner.

Augustinsson’s teammate Benjamin Verbic helped clear the rodents, with stewards then tossing them further from the pitch.

The incident took place five minutes from the end of the game at the 28,000-capacity Brondby Stadium, with the home side trailing 1-0.

Copenhagen went on to win the match, which meant they opened up a 13-point gap at the top of the table over their city rivals.

After the game, Brondby sports director Troels Bech criticized those fans who threw the rats onto the pitch.  

"It's unfortunate that there are some visitors who could not figure out how to behave properly," Bech said, according to the club website. 

The two sides are bitter rivals; Brondby has won the Danish league 10 times while Copenhagen is one title ahead on 11 wins.

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The rat-throwing incident is the latest in a long list of animal-related crowd protests, with perhaps the most famous coming in November 2002, when Real Madrid star Luis Figo had a severed pig’s head thrown at him by Barcelona fans during a game at Camp Nou.

Figo had signed for Real from Barca two years earlier for a then world record fee of around $60 million.