"Section 5 of the 1986 Public Order Act currently means that "threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour" might be deemed a criminal offence. "
Not quite correct, sp. The word "insulting" was recently removed from the legislation. From 1st February it has not been illegal to insult somebody:
http://reformsection5.org.uk/news/
Apart from that I'm quite in agreement with Mikey and TTT - football "fans" and players need to grow up. Apparently many of the people involved in this incident were the wrong side of 40 - old enough to know better than to behave so childishly. "The Beautiful Game?" I think not.