Fears of violence clouds Germany’s Bundesliga
BERLIN — Fan trouble and the threat of violence are overshadowing Friday’s start to the Bundesliga.
Defending champion Bayern Munich plays host to Bayer Leverkusen to get the league underway, but unsavoury scenes in the German Cup and the threat of more to come have dominated headlines in the buildup.
“I have become very concerned in the last weeks and months that there were martial marches in the context of football games, ‘war declarations’ and inhuman actions against teams and their fans,” German soccer federation president Reinhard Grindel said Wednesday. “Football can’t stand for that. It has to stop.”
The latest incidents occurred Monday, when Hertha Berlin’s game at Hansa Rostock was twice held up. First, Hertha fans lit flares and fireworks in their corner. Later, the match was stopped for a much longer suspension when Rostock fans taunted their rivals with a Hertha banner stolen from a previous game. They set it alight as fireworks flew in both directions. Some landed on the field, and referee Robert Hartmann led the players off as fires broke out amid unoccupied seats with riot police lined up alongside.
The police were unable to intervene because of a fence separating them from the masked fans, who continued taunting their rivals. The game was not abandoned, but resumed more than a quarter of an hour later to the sound of explosions.
“That will occupy everyone in the coming days and weeks — federations, clubs, fans. It absolutely cannot go on like this,” Hertha general manager Michael Preetz said.
Officials were helpless to prevent the trouble despite it being labelled a high-risk game.
“When you see that there were 1,700 police and more than 300 wardens here, that sniffer dogs and high-definition cameras are in operation. Everything that can be done to keep order was done,” Rostock chairman Robert Marien said. “It can only be solved by society as a whole.”
Potential trouble was averted in Berlin earlier Monday when police detained 91 Dynamo Berlin fans before their side’s game against Schalke. They had received information that rival fans arranged a fight. The police, who found balaclavas and expandable batons among the fans, released the detainees after the game.
Some ultra groups previously displayed banners calling for “war” against the German federation in response to a general clampdown on pyrotechnics at games.
Despite being banned, pyrotechnics featured prominently at many games last season, including the German Cup final between Borussia Dortmund and Eintracht Frankfurt.