Cologne apologise but say organisation was poor
By Cologne have apologised for the crowd disturbances which overshadowed Thursday night’s Europa League match at Arsenal
The Bundesliga club, though, also hit back at their limited ticket allocation and criticised “organisers” for being “not adequately prepared”, while insisting the police presence was “too small”.
Cologne also claimed some Arsenal tickets had been passed on “for horrendous prices”.
The Group H opener, which Arsenal won 3-1, was delayed by an hour as many away supporters without tickets looked to gain entry to the Emirates Stadium.
It is estimated around 20,000 Cologne fans travelled to London, despite only 3,000 tickets being on sale. Thousands of away supporters could be seen in the home stands.
Following the disturbances both inside and outside the ground, governing body Uefa opened disciplinary proceedings against the clubs yesterday morning.
Cologne face charges involving crowd disturbances, setting off fireworks, throwing of objects and acts of damage by their fans, while Arsenal are under investigation for having ‘’stairways blocked’’ in the away section.
Cologne’s statement read: “FC Koln is proud that tens of thousands of ‘Colognians’ wanted to experience the first European match in 25 years and made their way to London.
“The overwhelming majority of our fans have represented the club, the city of Cologne, and German football happily and positively.
“Due to the enormous demand for tickets, it would have been sensible, not least for security reasons, to allow more than the allocated five per cent of stadium capacity to the guest fans.
“It was apparent that thousands of people from Cologne would seek to avoid the restrictions and get tickets in every way possible.
“Despite the tremendous experience of both the London security forces and Arsenal as a permanent partaker in European football, the organisers were unfortunately not adequately prepared for the task.
“In our view, the security concept and communication seemed inadequate and the Police force too small.”