Soccer-Bastia must play next game at neutral ground without fans

Bastia will play their next home match at a neutral stadium behind closed doors after their ground was closed by the French league on Thursday following the abandonment of their game against Olympique Lyonnais.

Officials called a halt to Sunday's match after Lyon's goalkeeper Anthony Lopes was attacked by a group of home fans as he left the pitch at halftime of the Ligue 1 clash.

The start of the match had already been delayed by nearly an hour when the Bastia supporters charged the visiting team during their warm-up, forcing Lyon's players to flee the pitch.

At halftime several fans attacked Lopes as he headed for the dressing room, with the score at 0-0, and the game was called off 30 minutes after the second half was due to have begun.

The French league's disciplinary commission said that "in view of the seriousness" of the incidents, it had suspended the Armand-Cesari stadium as a precautionary measure and would "relocate SC Bastia's next home game to a neutral ground behind closed doors".

The league said it had to ordered the space allocated to visiting fans to be closed at Bastia's away games.

Bastia's next home match is against Rennes on April 29.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)