Fan violence

The supporters of second-division Union Berlin waiting outside the stadium are mostly males in their 20s. Despite the freezing temperatures, the upcoming match against Koblenz is sold out. Lars Schnell, the man in charge of fan relations for the club, moves through the crowd shaking hands - with a fan scarf around his neck and a police short-wave radio clipped to his lapel.

It's hard to believe that these are the same fans who fought a pitched battle with supporters of local rivals Dynamo Berlin at an indoor tournament in January. Several bystanders were injured in that incident.

"There was definitely no excuse for that," Schnell says. "But you have to understand - Dynamo are our arch-enemies."

In Communist East Germany, Union attracted support from people inclined to be critical of the state, while Dynamo was linked with the Stasi, the East German secret police. But fan violence is by no means an exclusively eastern phenomenon.

"You see the same problem in the West - just look at Dortmund and Schalke," Schnell says, referring to the Bundesliga's most heated rivalry.

After the incident in January, Union President Dirk Zingler criticized his own supporters and banned seven troublemakers from attending the club's matches. But he also spoke of the limits on what teams could do, when fans got out of hand.

"We can't control or influence how people behave during their free time," Zingler told a local newspaper. "Ultimately, the responsibility rests with the individuals concerned themselves."

Chaos in the Olympic Stadium

The truth of that statement was on ample display last Saturday across town in West Berlin's Olympic Stadium, where more than a hundred Hertha fans stormed the pitch after their team lost a crucial relegation battle against Nuremberg.

Stadium security personnel withdrew from the field, cordoning off the entrance to the players' dressing rooms and waiting for the police, as enraged supporters took out their frustration on team benches and advertising banners.

But the retreat was tactical.

"We discussed the possibility of such a scenario in advance," head of Hertha security Henry Klemm told reporters. "It was clear to us that, for our own protection and in the interests of de-escalation, we should pull back and protect the dressing rooms and the stands where there were still spectators."

Hertha Commercial Manager Michael Preetz has also insisted that the club's security personnel had acted appropriately. Police eventually cleared the pitch, making several arrests, and no one was seriously hurt.

But in the last three months, there have been at least six major instances of fan violence in the top three German divisions, ranging from supporters setting off fireworks and attacking rival supporters to besieging their own team's bus. Scores of troublemakers were arrested, and dozens of fans and police injured, a few of them seriously.

That raises the question: what's the best strategy to combat fans running amok, confrontation or de-escalation?

The carrot and the stick

Union has adopted a kinder, gentler approach to fans prone to blowing a fuse. Management speaks with them directly and tries to build up a sense of connection with the club by offering them voluntary jobs.

The idea is to change attitudes.

"When they realize how much work gets put in here, they see how crap their behavior is," Schnell says.

The result is that the individual isn't shut out and the club expands its network in the fan community, Schnell continues, adding that the strategy had achieved good results thus far.

On the pitch the match against Koblenz is underway, and the mood has gotten louder and more aggressive. Supporters in the ultra block are chanting, "Iron Union, Iron Union," a reference to the team's history as a metalworkers' club. And after the home side scores an early goal, the crowd goes bananas.

"Football is very emotional," Schnell says. "If the referee makes a couple of questionable calls, the mood can flip-flop."

Schnell makes his way through the crowd once more. He still has to check with police, he says, to ensure that everything is prepared, should the mood turn sour.

Things get tight

In the meantime, the game has developed into a dogfight, and when Koblenz are awarded a free-kick, Union supporters are outraged.

"Hey, man, are you nuts?" yells one supporter, throwing his fan scarf on the ground and ignoring the fact that, in this case, the referee was a woman.

Fans have traditionally played a central role at Union. One supporter even sits on the club's board of directors. So it makes sense to draw on that tradition to maintain order in the team's stadium.

In the end, Union beats Koblenz 3-2, earning an important victory in their bid to stay up in division two. The fans file out of the stadium, satisfied. A couple of them even joke about the possibility of derbies next season with relegation-threatened Hertha.

Schnell, too, is happy.

"We try to make people feel basically at home," he says. "But we need to be clear about the fact that we can't change society."

And that, in a nutshell, is the limitation clubs face when they try to prevent incidents like the one on Saturday in the Olympic Stadium.

Author: Andre Leslie (jc)
Editor: Nancy Isenson