LONDON, Dec 2 — British police said today 46 men have been charged after "serious disorder outside” Villa Park on Thursday in the build up to a Europa Conference League football game in which authorities said five officers were injured.

"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 kickoff in a game between Aston Villa and Legia Warsaw. Villa won the match 2-1.

"Those charged are aged between 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 today and a special court had been set up at Birmingham magistrates court to begin hearing the cases this morning.

Yesterday, 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 today.

"We emphasise 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. — Reuters