According to statistics, violence outside stadiums is increasing: security forces in action (archive image)
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Is violence in football stadiums increasing? The numbers prove the opposite. However, insiders are worried about the increasing “third-party disputes”.
Last weekend, several hundred fans of Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04 stormed towards each other at Cologne Central Station, but the police who were there immediately prevented more than twenty rioters from clashing.
The BVB supporters were on the way back from Augsburg, the Schalke team on the way to Karlsruhe, when their trains arrived in the cathedral city.
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Police chiefs write statement
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Two weeks earlier, there had been clashes in the second division southwest derby between Karlsruher SC and 1. FC Kaiserslautern after Baden fans stormed towards the away corner. Several stewards were injured.
After the fighting at Cologne train station, the two police chiefs from Dortmund and Gelsenkirchen wrote a joint statement:
More and more often, supposed ‘fans’ are actively meeting up to brutally attack each other.
Police chiefs of Dortmund and Gelsenkirchen
“The spiral of violence in and around the stadiums of the first and second Bundesliga” has been “spinning faster and faster for several months.”
Figures show that violence in stadiums is actually decreasing
However, the picture of the spiraling spiral of violence contradicts the figures provided by the police themselves. These feed the annual report of the Central Information Center for Sports Operations.
It has just been published for the 2024/25 season. And it shows that there were more pyrotechnics in the three highest divisions, but significantly fewer injuries than in the previous season.
Visiting Oktoberfest is more dangerous than a league game
And that despite the fact that four percent more fans came to the stadiums. 1,107 people were injured (minus 17 percent). “The stadiums are safe places,” comments the umbrella organization of fan aids.
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“Volksfests like the Oktoberfest,” the fan aid groups continued, had significantly higher numbers of injuries than everyday league life. If you convert the ZIS numbers, “the risk of being injured while attending a football game is 0.00438 percent.”
That may be so. But even if the stadiums are largely safe, that still says nothing about the so-called “third-place clashes,” in which opposing groups of fans meet far away from the stadiums to fight each other.
The reference medium for this violence-loving clientele is the Telegram channel of “Gruppa OF” with 10,000 videos and posts showing arranged fights. Videos of the fights are often online an hour later.
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“Professionalization of violence” among thugs
Philipp Beitzel from the coordination office for fan projects in Frankfurt, who speaks of a “professionalization of violence,” also believes that the fascination with violence has increased in some areas.
The arguments no longer take place in the stadiums, but rather in arranged fights for which people train in the gym during the week – which, by the way, is not only fashionable in the football context.
“Matches” are arranged secretly
It can be assumed that in most cases the public is no more aware of these “matches” than the media or the police. But what she notices is frightening enough.
Last year, a special train carrying Essen fans was brought to a stop when the emergency brake was pulled. During the altercation with Rostock fans waiting outside, stones were thrown and the property damage amounted to almost 120,000 euros.
This confrontation was also agreed upon and no bystanders were harmed. However, this is not a reason to give the all-clear.
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