Police charge more than 40 men after 'serious disorder' at Villa Park

"Of those, 43 have been charged with a public order offence, while two have been charged with assaulting police officers and another has been charged with possession of a knife," West Midland's Police said in a statement.

The unrest occurred ahead of kick-off in a game between Aston Villa and Legia Warsaw.

"Those charged are aged between and 21 and 63, and around 40 are believed to be from Poland. A small number are believed to be UK residents," West Midland's Police said.

Police said all apart from one of the men were due in court on Saturday and a special court had been set up at Birmingham magistrates court to begin hearing the cases this morning.

On Friday, Aston Villa said they had lodged a complaint with UEFA over the conduct of Legia Warsaw and the behaviour of the club's supporters.

Legia Warsaw initially claimed that Villa had given them a lower allocation of tickets than they were entitled to under UEFA regulations.

"Due to the inability to authenticate and distribute tickets effectively, Legia Warsaw returned the tickets to the host club," Legia Warsaw said in a statement on Saturday.

"We emphasize that none of the individuals detained by the police had tickets for yesterday's match. Therefore, we strongly object to Legia Warsaw being blamed for Thursday's incidents in Birmingham."

In Friday's statement, Villa said Legia Warsaw had been informed of the ticket allocation details four weeks before the match, adding that the Polish team's officials had refused to confirm if they would accept their allocation until 4pm on Thursday.