DPA
Frankfurt
Growing fan violence at football games in Germany has raised concern in the run-up to next year’s European championships in the country.
“We are watching the current events with concern,” the German Football Federation (DFB) told dpa.
The DFB called for a dialogue between all parties involved with the aim “to create the best possible conditions for an exciting, peaceful and safe tournament.”
It said it wants “criminal offenders to be persecuted, especially if they want to use football for their own purposes,” but without “blanket criminalisation of fans” and “prejudgement of police measures.”
The rising number of incidents will be on the agenda of a conference of interior ministers from the 16 German states (IMK) which runs from Wednesday until Friday.
“We are calling on the IMK to discuss the dramatic development of violence by ultra groups in a separate agenda item and to define a joint approach against aggressive and violent ultra groups,” Jochen Kopelke, chairman of the police union, told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland publishing house.
The escalation culminated in late November when some 200 people were injured during riots around the Bundesliga match between Eintracht Frankfurt and VfB Stuttgart.
Politicians warned of a loss of control in stadiums while fans criticised excessive use of force by the police in Frankfurt, claiming “they wanted to flex their muscles before the 2024 Euros.” Fan researcher Harald Lange warned against tougher measures because “if hardliners get their way with the police then we will actually see an escalation. The idea of using law and order to tame a fan culture is doomed to failure.
“Fan culture also thrives on crossing borders,” Lange said in a recent interview with publishers Rhein-Main.
But Kopelke insisted that the police is no longer ready to accept this, stating: “We are experiencing a planned and coordinated hate campaign against us police officers in stadiums at the moment.
“The perpetrators are engaging in a massive perpetrator-victim reversal, although some ultra groups are bringing hatred, incitement and violence into the stadiums,” Kopelke said.