Battle of the Buffet
association football match
The "Battle of the Buffet", also known as "Pizzagate", was a Premier League match played between Manchester United and Arsenal at Old Trafford, Manchester, on 24 October 2004. Arsenal dictated much of the early play and created several openings, but as the game progressed Manchester United threatened. The home team were awarded a penalty in the 73rd minute, when Wayne Rooney was deemed to have been fouled by Sol Campbell. Ruud van Nistelrooy converted the penalty kick; Rooney also scored late in the game, making the score 2–0. The result ended Arsenal's record-breaking 49-match unbeaten run. Many Arsenal fans were disgruntled, for they believed Rooney had dived and the penalty should not have been given.
In the tunnel after the match, tempers boiled over between staff of both clubs, and amid the brawl, a slice of pizza was thrown at Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson. Arsenal midfielder Cesc Fàbregas, then 17 years old, was reported to be the culprit, which he admitted in 2017. Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger was furious in his post-match briefing, criticising referee Mike Riley for his performance and describing Van Nistelrooy as a cheat. His comments were investigated by The Football Association, who later fined him £15,000 for improper conduct.
“Battle of the Buffet” enters the record as association football match. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Battle, Buffet and association can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4493716. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2004 and 2017.
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This entry incorporates text from “Battle of the Buffet” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.