German police have spoken of concerns about a lack of information about the level of aggression of the latest generation of England fans as supporters flock to Germany for the first Euro competition since the pandemic.
German police admit they ignored possible violence at England-Serbia match
Sunday night's match between England and Serbia, England's first match at Euro 2024, has been billed as “high risk” due to an increased threat of violence between two groups of supporters with a history of harassment, according to The Guardian.
Peter Both, the police chief of the host city of Gelsenkirchen, said the anomaly of Euro 2020 made it difficult to judge how the current generation of 20-year-olds would behave.
He said that “there's one area where maybe we all have a little bit of confidence: If you look at the fact that the last major tournament that you could really travel to from almost anywhere, I mean the last public tournament, was the 2016 European Championships, and this that was eight years ago. Since then, fan scenes have developed, and today, these fans are in their mid-20s, so they're at a stage where they might as well transition into becoming part of an aggressive camp of fans, but of course that makes it difficult for us to predict exactly what will happen.”
Both stated that this led the German police to “takes more safety precautions than other matches”, including the decision to serve only low-alcohol beer in the Veltins-Arena, home of Bundesliga club Schalke.
The Euro 2020 tournament was due to take place between 12 June and 12 July 2020, but was postponed to 2021 due to the pandemic, and a number of restrictions remained in place.
Serbian football has long been marred by hooliganism, and in recent years there has been an increase in disorder in England's domestic leagues after a period of improved behavior on the terraces.
Last summer, there were 1,624 football banning orders in place, a 24% increase on the previous year. In the 2022-2023 football season, 682 new banning orders were issued, which is a 32% increase compared to the 2021-22 football season.
Those subject to such orders have been required to surrender their passports to police from June 4 until the final on July 14 to ensure they do not attempt to attend matches in Germany.
Both said that while the FA had received an allocation of 10,000 tickets, he believed 20,000 had been sold to England fans for Sunday's game and more than 30,000 were now expected in the city.
Around 10,000 Serbian fans are expected, although Both said it was difficult to monitor because “in Serbia, they can simply get in the car and drive to Germany.”
