LONDON

Crowd problems marred the World Cup qualifiers as Hungarian fans clashed with police in a 1-1 draw with England at Wembley Stadium and the Polish players left for Albania after that bottles were thrown in another Group I game on Tuesday.

Karol Åšwiderski had just scored for Poland in the 77th minute when he was hit by a bottle thrown from the stands. This led to a suspension of the game for around 20 minutes before Poland returned to the pitch and hang on to win 1-0.

Euro 2020 finalists England are now three points ahead of Poland, with games against Albania and San Marino remaining next month in pursuit of automatic World Cup qualification in Qatar next year.

The mess in London happened around the kick-off after England players kneeling down were booed by visiting fans.

“Officers entered the gallery to arrest a spectator for a racially aggravated public order offense following comments made against a flight attendant,” Metropolitan Police said in a statement. “As the police proceeded with the arrest, minor disturbances erupted involving other bystanders. “

Police officers were seen wielding batons to restrain visiting fans. The rest of the game went largely smoothly.

Luke Shaw’s foul on Loic Nego allowed Roland Sallai to put Hungary ahead from the penalty spot in the 24th minute.

England equalized in the 37th when John Stones returned a free kick from Manchester City teammate Phil Foden.

England coach Gareth Southgate even knocked out captain Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling with 15 minutes remaining for Jordan Henderson and Tammy Abraham.

But England were unable to produce a winner, dropping points in a home qualifying game for the first time since a draw against Ukraine in September 2012.

“Disappointing performance,” Southgate said. “All credit goes to Hungary. I thought they posed a tactical problem for us and I don’t think we played at the level we needed to play.

“We’re going to leave and think about the balance of the team, but individually we can also do better. We shouldn’t just be judging things on one game, overall we weren’t precise with our game, gave the ball away. “

The mess from Hungarian fans – including racism – during the home game against England in Budapest last month led Hungary to play Saturday’s game against Albania in an empty stadium.

FIFA have put Hungary on probation with the threat of another match without supporters if there is more mess in the matches.

England defender Tyrone Mings said he hoped “the punishment this time matches what happened”.