Cairo: The headquarters of the Egyptian Football Association were set ablaze on Saturday, minutes after a police officers' club was torched following sentencing over a deadly football riot last year.
Firefighters were working to put out the fire, which spread through the building located in the same neighbourhood as the officers' club, an AFP reporter said.
Several buildings in a police officers' club complex in the Egyptian capital were in flames on Saturday, an AFP reporter said.
According to a senior security official, hardcore football fans known as the Ultras stormed the complex and set fire to the buildings.
Residents of the affluent island where the club is situated were using garden hoses to try to extinguish the flames. Other buildings in the complex had their windows smashed.
Several hundred members of the Ultras were also making their way towards the interior ministry, state television reported.
The unrest comes hours after an Egyptian court upheld death sentences for 21 defendants over a deadly football riot in Port Said last year and handed down life sentences to five defendants, with 19 receiving lesser jail terms and another 28 exonerated.
The court sentenced two senior policemen to 15 years each - former head of police security General Essam Samak and Brigadier General Mohammed Saad, who at the time of the riot was responsible for the stadium gates, which were locked.
Seven remaining police defendants were acquitted.
During sentencing, the judge read out a string of names without identifying their position, leading to much confusion. "First we were happy when we heard the 21 death sentences. We were cheering and didn't hear the rest of the verdict," one football supporter told AFP. "Then we were very angry."
In Cairo, fans of Al Ahly football club, whose members were killed in the February 2012 stadium riot in Port Said in which 74 people died, had warned police that they would retaliate if the defendants, including nine policemen, were exonerated.
Egypt court upholds death sentences on 21 soccer fans
Earlier report from Cairo: An Egyptian court confirmed on Saturday death sentences handed down to 21 soccer fans for their role in a stadium riot, which killed dozens of people in Port Said in 2012, a case which has provoked violent protests in the Suez Canal city.
The court also jailed two senior police officers for 15 years for their role in the riot in February 2012, in which more than 70 people died.
Unrest has plagued Port Said since the death sentences were first announced on January 26, with local residents who want the fans spared fighting pitched battles with police. At least eight people have been killed this week, including three policemen.
The case has highlighted worsening law and order in much of Egypt since the overthrow of former President Hosni Mubarak two years ago.
The government of President Mohammad Mursi is struggling to halt the slide in security, hampered by a strike by some police in protests that are likely to be fuelled by Saturday's jail sentences for the senior officers.
Listing the names of the 21 fans, the judge said the Cairo court had confirmed "the death penalty by hanging". In a ruling on live TV, the court also sentenced five more people to life in jail for the riot and acquitted 28. Others out of a total of 73 defendants received shorter jail sentences.
Central Port Said was quiet following the court ruling, with the army maintaining security after the government pulled out police, who have been hated by many Egyptians since the Mubarak era, to ease tensions.
The stadium riot erupted at the end of a match between Cairo's Al Ahly team and Al Masry, the local side.
Spectators were crushed when panicked crowds tried to escape from the stadium after a pitch invasion by supporters of Al Masry. Others fell or were thrown from terraces.
Many fans of the Cairo side were happy with the ruling on Saturday confirming the death sentences. "This is a just verdict and has calmed us all down. Our martyrs have been vindicated," Said Sayyid, 21, told Reuters.
