Among the 15,153 people in attendance at Yankee Stadium for New York City FC’s 3-1 playoff win over the Philadelphia Union, one man in particular grabbed the attention of his fellow fans. Dennis Davila is one of several NYCFC supporters who was also photographed among a crowd of men representing several alt-right groups who participated in the assault of three anti-fascist demonstrators in Manhattan on Oct. 12th.

“Proud Boy” white supremacist Denis Davila is in Section 236 again tonight. But head of @NYCFC security (who has known about these guys for 4 years) came to our section to intimidate people who tried to put up an anti-racist banner. Priorities seem confused @NYCFC — Tommy (@NYCFirm) October 31, 2018

The details of the assault—its participants and timeline—have been documented by publications such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. Several enterprising NYCFC fans have also gathered evidence, using photographs from NYCFC games and the scene of the assault, showing that a handful of the men who participated are also regulars at NYCFC matches.

Those efforts were aided by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an advocacy group, which identified three of the men who were present at the assault and also frequently attend NYCFC events.

“At least three skinheads were among the crowd of Proud Boys,” reads the SPLC report, published the day after the assault. “Joe Bola and Dennis Davila are members of 211 Bootboys, an ultranationalist far-right skinhead crew based mostly in the New York metropolitan area.”

“The third skinhead at the New York scene, known only as ‘Irv,’ has belonged to a crew of primarily Latino skinheads called B49, or ‘Battalion 49,’” it continues. “Irv attended the deadly ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville as a member of the Proud Boys-affiliated group the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights.”

“Irv”—Irvin Antillon, 41—was arrested and charged with riot and assault 10 days later. Together with Bola and Davila, Antillon is a familiar face at Yankee Stadium for NYCFC matches.

The presence of the men has proven a challenge for NYCFC’s front office and its organized supporters groups.

The president of the team’s largest supporters group, the Third Rail, addressed the situation in a private message posted to the Third Rail’s Facebook page on Oct. 24th. Andy Drelick acknowledged the SPLC’s report that several members or associates of far-right groups, and who were being investigated by the police for their roles in the assault, “have attended NYCFC matches this year and associate with NYCFC supporters.”

“The Third Rail believes that soccer and NYCFC are for all people, and that hate groups, and members of hate groups, have no place at NYCFC matches, in the supporters section, or in our organization,” the statement continued. “This is not a political disagreement as some have suggested, a simple right vs. left political discussion that The Third Rail should refrain from engaging in. This issue involves extremist hate groups, that target and abuse individuals based on their religion, race, gender, and country of origin, are sometimes violent, and spread an ideology counter to our values as a supporters group.”

Drelick wrote that the Third Rail was still investigating whether any of its members had been involved, but said he did not believe that to be the case, and that the club, too, was “conducting extensive research and exploring their available options to deal with this problem.”

This is the latest instance of far-right stirrings among what appears to be a fringe element of NYCFC supporters.

In 2015, fans at Yankee Stadium complained of troubling chants and salutes. Those actions were condemned by the Third Rail’s president at the time, Chance Michaels.

In August of that year, before an NYCFC match against the New York Red Bulls in Harrison, N.J., members of Battalion 49—one of the groups to which Antillon belongs, according to the SPLC—reportedly brawled with members of the Garden State Ultras (GSU), a Red Bulls supporters group. “They came looking for us,” said a member of GSU. That melee became well known for the use of a sandwich board as a weapon.

In New Jersey and immediately encounter crowd trouble ahead of the New York derby (Red Bulls-City). Video: pic.twitter.com/slY3hYn5aM — Rob Harris (@RobHarris) August 9, 2015

In 2017, stickers bearing the words “Empire Ultras” and “white power,” in the club’s sky blue and orange colors, appeared in Brooklyn.

This is from Empire State Ultras, a neo-nazi white supremacist group that attached themselves to @NYCFC. Put on top of a @NYCosmos sticker. pic.twitter.com/5G9shXwO21 — Nathen McVittie (@nathenmcvittie) March 2, 2017

The club declined to comment for this article. After the assault on Oct. 12th and Antillon’s arrest, NYCFC issued this statement:

“NYCFC has a zero tolerance policy for hate related offences of any kind at our matches or events,” the statement read. “We vigilantly and without hesitation enforce this policy against anyone who engages in such conduct. We are proud of the safe, passionate, diverse and fan-friendly environment at our matches. As always, we ask our fans to report conduct that does not fall in line with our Club’s core value of inclusivity to our Fan Services team 855-776-9232 (Option 3). Any incident raised by our fans will be investigated immediately and thoroughly.”

Antillon described how he became a skinhead in a 2012 interview with VICE. (Coincidentally, Gavin McInnes, the founder of the Proud Boys, is also a VICE co-founder; he left the company in 2008.) According to Antillon, he became radicalized by the police’s treatment of his friends in Jackson Heights, Queens—not by national politics.

“I don’t follow politics, man,” he said. “All I know is some black motherfucker got elected and I am cool with that. That means change. I’m a felon, I can’t vote, and honestly I don’t care. I don’t think my vote counts. I don’t think anyone’s vote counts. I feel the motherfuckers with money are the ones who control it.”

The statement is now more than half a decade old, but the way it echoes previous research into soccer hooliganism is striking. In his 1990 masterpiece Among the Thugs, author Bill Buford documented the lives and motivations of young men in Britain who turned to violence at football matches not as an expression of a coherent political view but as a pleasurable way of dealing with their alienation from society.

“Why do young males riot every Saturday?” Buford wrote. “They do it for the same reason that another generation drank too much, or smoked dope, or took hallucinogenic drugs, or behaved badly or rebelliously. Violence is their antisocial kick, their mind-altering experience, an adrenaline-induced euphoria that might be all the more powerful because it is generated by the body itself….”

“To me if you are a skinhead, you are a skinhead before any of your political beliefs,” Antillon, who is of Guatemalan descent, told VICE. “But I still do believe that racism exists in everybody. A form of nationalism exists in everybody.”

Given the intersection of such primal forces and the current national political climate—on Oct. 22nd, President Trump said, “We’re not supposed to use that word. You know what I am? I’m a nationalist. OK? I’m a nationalist”—it is perhaps not surprising that a soccer club and its mainstream supporters are unsure of the correct response.

“We haven’t been experts in the past and we’re studying up on it now,” Ben Glidden, the Third Rail’s director of marketing and public relations, told The Athletic. “In the mass of thousands of people who have attended these games, when it was two-to-four people max, it’s hard to identify, and since it’s such a small concentration, we would not have noticed right away.”

“I would like to see the club ensure that any members involved in hate groups are not allowed to be near the stadium or our organization’s events,” Glidden continued. “Whether that’s public action or private is up to them, but we need to see action and I would love for a response plan to be put in place so that we can take care of it quickly.”

(Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images)