I mean, it's true what
@OJ Simpson said, there were a couple of incident this year in France. But I wouldn't overestimate it atm. The 2021/22 season still started in France with no fans in the statiums because Covid. Shortly after fans were allowed to attend again there was some action in Marseille -if I remember it correctly- but I would attribute it to barred emotions simply overcooking. Also there is a lot of going on in France because of all the Covid restrictions, rising unemployment, things become more expensive while wages and the whole economy is stagnating. France is cruially divided atm -like at lot of other countries too- and this always benefits violence. Football always has been, still is and probably will be forever linked to social issues.
Not trying to defend here what happens in French stadiums this year but the issue goes a lot deeper than just drunk fans or organized hooliganism.
And of course I can only really speak about Germany but here the age of football hooliganism is over.
Ticket prizes have risen a lot. Mostly because the clubs are trying to compensate their financial loses during the last two Covid years. Laws against football hooliganism have become very serious over the past decade or two decades. So these two factors alone have softend a lot because your traditional hooligan won't spent 50, 60 Euros on a ticket, go into a Big Brother stadium with all it's high tech cameras and even microphones everywhere just to storm the pit for a few minutes, get caught and sentenced to years of prison.
Most of our Bundesliga clubs have become very strict on sanctioning even silly banters and insults. They get you once and chances are very high that you will get banned from attending any future game for the rest of your life. There are so many ridiulous lolsiuts going on against fans for simply bantering the enemy team or some rich ass club owners.
And then there is the police of course. Every game that is considered to be a high risk game will have enough police forces in the stadium - and we are talking here about special units, not your average street cop. These guys are equipped pretty well and if they want to fuck you up they'll do it - and you can nothing do against it. Police brutality is a thing and not just left cry babies conspiracy theories. It's documented by enough normal non-violent fans, NGOs, Ultras, etc. Most of our police forces are pussies but not the ones who will be used during football games.
But speaking about police. German police uses three different categories for football fans:
- Category A are the normal fans, the non-violent ones, like families going to a match together with their kids.
- Category B are usually the Ultras or everyone who dares to be ready for self defence if he gets attacked which is a basic right in our constituation. You get physically attacked you are allowed to fight back and defend yourself by using physical force - but not when it's about football. Then you are considered to be a danger to society.
- Category C is everyone who attends a game and is ready to cause problems, basically your old school hooligan.
If you are considered to be a fan of category B or worse a category C police can restrict your basic civil rights like they can take away your passport so that you can't go abroad or they can force you to stay in contact with your local police station so that they know where you are. If you don't follow their orders you will face trial and probably face prison time. They are allowed to monitor your phone and internet profiles like you are a islamic terrorist. Your they can they say "Fuck it" and get you into custody directly during a game.
Also most of our traditional hooligan firms have kind of died or ceased to exist.
Hertha BSC had the "Herthafrösche" (Hertha frogs) - gone.
Dortmund had the "Borussenfront" - gone.
Schalkes hooligan groups - gone.
Eintracht Frankfurt hooligans - gone.
etc.
Either people have become too old and calmed down or have ran into too many legal troubles to continue. Or they have moved on to get more involved with (right) wing politics and cause troubles on political rallys. Like the Borussenfront which always was a very right winged group. A lot of their members Nazis and they formed a political party ("Die Rechte"/"The Right" in opposition to our party "Die Linke"/"The Left") after they formed a new hooligan group which got banned from attending any games.
Also a lot of clubs which have or had traditional hooligan firms have declined to lower divisions. In the beginning the hooliganism continued there but a lot of the groups got actually bored because their teams now face unknown and unimportant teams with no firms.
A lot of high risk games basically don't happened anymore because most of the teams play in different divisions. And if they clash once in a while, every 10 years or so, there is so much police forces that's is basically impossible to stir any noteworthy trouble.
Our most controversial events are now when fans light some flares during a game. Then everyone in the media goes apeshit for one or two days and that's it.
This year we had one incident during a match in Bochum where someone threw a half empty beer cup at a referee. The ref got hit, the game got cancelled and Bochum lost the game by DFB decision while they got fined a few thousand Euros. That's it.
I couldn't really recall hearing from any greater and serious incidents from Austria or from the Scandinavian countries or from Swiss. Or even from the Netherlands which still has some serious firms being active in Amsterdam or Rotterdam. Or from Italy. Or from Spain. Or from UK.
So basically I would say that the issue isn't that big and serious anymore. But of course it still may happened everywhere and I didn't catch the news.
