When the camera panned to a fan in the away end of Aston Villa’s Champions League match against Bayern Munich, viewers were in for a major surprise.
At a boisterous Villa Park, Unai Emery’s team welcomed Bayern for their first Champions League home game of the new season.
The game was moving quickly on the field, and about 20 minutes in, a fan in the stands was shown on TNT Sports cameras. He was observed fist-pumping and cheering for his side while appearing innocent from a distance.
However, he seemed to snort a white powder that had been placed upon his wrist while the cameras were focused on him for a brief moment.
It was evident that the director attempted to quickly cut away after realising what was being shown, but it was already too late.
Millions of people watched the fan’s actions live and worldwide, and many had already noticed them. They were as obvious as day.
Naturally, the Tuesday night surprise caused fans to scream in reaction.
Villa believed they had taken a 1-0 lead in the match when Pau Torres headed home, but VAR correctly disallowed the first goal due to an offside during the build-up.
Dayot Upamecano’s avoidance of what appeared to be a simple red card when he hauled down Ollie Watkins while running through had already left the hosts feeling cheated.
Minutes later, the former RB Leipzig player was given a yellow card for the same behaviour, but he went unpunished.
