500 foreign police on World Cup duty in Germany - 03/05/2006
Source : WorldSoccerNews
Around 500 foreign police will come to Germany as part of the security operation to prevent hooligan violence at this summer's football World Cup finals, a top government official said.
August Hanning, a senior official in the German interior ministry, said Wednesday that 300 uniformed officers from European Union member states would assist German police.
Another 200 would come from other countries among the 32 qualified nations.
"The laws governing the federal police in Germany allow police officers from other EU countries to come to Germany and work together with German officers," Hanning told an audience of foreign journalists.
"We have invited 300 officers from the EU member states who will operate in their uniforms here in Germany.
"I think that is a big help because when it comes to hooligans we can rely on their expertise because they are in a better position to deal with them than the German police.
"On top of that, we have 200 officers from other participating nations who will act as liaison officers with the Germans."
Hanning said the number of officers sent from each country would be in proportion to the number of supporters expected from each country.
The British government has announced that it will send 79 officers, including 44 in uniform, to Germany to accompany the 100,000 England fans expected to attend the finals which take place from June 9 to July 9.
At the last World Cup to be held in Europe, in France in 1998, rioting English hooligans caused chaos and an attack by German hooligans left a French riot policeman permanently brain damaged.
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Polish hooligan army to invade World Cup - 06/05/2006
Source : TIMES online
A HARD core of violent Polish fans led by neo-Nazis is emerging as the biggest hooligan threat to the World Cup, displacing the traditional troublemakers from England and the Netherlands.
“It will be the battle for Berlin,” Andrzej said, with a crooked, toothy grin. Clasping a can of beer and singing obscene anthems, he is one of the estimated 250,000 Polish supporters who will be travelling to Germany next month, with or without a ticket.
We met the 38-year-old mechanic outside the Lech Poznan Stadium before a low-key encounter with Dyskobolia, a local rival, but the talk was of war, blood and the settling of scores on an international level. Poland play Germany on June 14 and whatever the outcome on the pitch, passions will be stirred among the two largest hooligan contingents at the tournament.
To our surprise, Andrzej disappeared to the gentler side of the stadium and squeezed among the younger supporters. There were tougher fans than him at the game, who were shepherded into a huge metal cage: a couple of hundred baying skinheads. As in every Polish game, ritualised chants echoed across the stadium but there was anger too, waiting to be exported across the border to Germany. “Don’t want no education,” bellowed the crowd in a warm-up song borrowed from Pink Floyd. “Don’t want no thought control.”
Police calculate that there are between 2,000 and 2,500 potentially violent Polish hooligans. But the figure is guesswork. Each region has its own figures. There is no central list, little monitoring and no clear overview.
“Only about 5 per cent of the fan community are really hooligans,” Jaroslaw Kilinski, head of Wiara Lech, the Poznan supporters club, said. “The Germans are exaggerating the problem.”
But 5 per cent of 250,000 adds up to more than 12,000 thugs, enough to change the balance of the hooligan problem during the World Cup. By comparison, 100,000 England fans are expected, with more than 3,000 forced to stay at home under banning orders.
The dynamics of Polish hooliganism could be observed in the Poznan cage. About six organisers, none of them wearing fan regalia, slipped through the barred entrance — resembling the exercise yard of a high-security prison — and controlled the mood of the terraces. Using mobile phones to co-ordinate with other parts of the stadium, they whipped up or calmed the fans. After the match, they disappeared into the crowd.
According to Marcin Kornak, the head of the fan-monitoring agency Never Again, they were almost certainly linked to far-right groups. “The hooligan scene has become a prime penetration target for organised neo-Nazis,” he said.
The far-right group Blood and Honour has infiltrated the fan clubs of Wroclaw, Gdansk and Lodz. Each club in Poland, according to Filip Janczak, of the Poznan Supporters Association, has a hooligan cell, often just a handful of young men. “They have their own web of communication — with mobile phones and the internet,” he said.
Grudge matches bring them out. “The arithmetic is complicated,” Jacek Purski, of Never Again, said. “Legia Warsaw has 70 hardcore
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