Season 22/23 - April

Belgium : KAS Eupen - Zulte-Waregem - 15/04/2023

Source: https://www.lavenir.net/

After the game, lost by Eupen, police had to intervene against the local fans.

FC Luzern - FC Zürich - 15/04/2023

Source : https://www.luzernerzeitung.ch/

After the game, FCZ supporters threw bottles at the police, who responded with rubber bullets.

There were also damages to parked vehicles.

Watford FC - Bristol City - 15/04/2023

Source : Mail

Greece : Cache of potential weapons seen linked to hooligans - 15/04/2023

Source : https://www.ekathimerini.com/

Police in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, are investigating any possible links between a soccer fan club and a cache of potential weapons found in an abandoned building next door to it.

The Athens-Macedonian News Agency reported on Saturday that officers with the police’s special directorate for cracking down on sports-related violence were acting on a tipoff when they raided the building.

There, they found a large cache of wooden bats, metal and plastic rods, axes of different sizes, a collapsible baton, knives and other objects that are often used in hooligan violence.

They also found the license plates of a car and a motorcycle that had been reported stolen.

The building where the objects were found is next door to a fan club for a popular local soccer team.

Eintracht Frankfurt - Borussia Mönchengladbach - 15/04/2023

Source : https://www.gladbachlive.de/

Many Gladbach fans missed kick-off after being blocked by police at Mainz train station. In question, degradations committed by the supporters, according to the police.



-------------------------

Source : https://www.tag24.de/

Around 200 supporters of clubs Borrusia Dortmund and Borrusia Mönchengladbach fought in Eschhofen. The police had to intervene in large numbers.

Those from Dortmund were returning from a trip to Stuttgart, aboard 3 buses, while those from Gladbach were returning from Frankfurt, aboard a bus. They crossed paths on the same rest area of ​​the A3, in Eschhofen.

Rot-Weiss Essen - Waldhof Mannheim - 16/04/2023

Source : https://www.liga3-online.de/

On the trip to Essen, supporters of Mannheim were attacked by hooligans from Darmstadt, who were returning from a trip to Düsseldorf. The clashes took place, on an area of ​​the A3 motorway, about fifty kilometers from Essen. Three people were injured and a bus had its windshield shattered, to the point that it could not continue on its way.

AJ Auxerre - FC Nantes - 15/04/2023

Source : https://www.lyonne.fr/

At 1:30 p.m., a fight broke out in front of the Stades bar between around thirty Nantes and Parisian supporters, before the kick-off.

At 2:30 p.m., some Parisian supporters still present in the bar were escorted to the stadium by the police. The Anti-Crime Brigade (BAC) was on site, alongside police and gendarmes, who protect the bar and the surroundings of Abbé-Deschamps.

16 PSG fans were arrested and two Nantes were injurded.

KARSUD PSG

Rapid Wien - Austria Wien - 16/04/2023

Source : Mail

Austria






---------------------

Source : https://www.heute.at/

The police report mentions 43 hooligans arrested on board a tram, while they were wearing combat gloves and mouth guards.

England : Coventry vs Brentford - 15/04/2023

Source : https://www.thesun.co.uk/

Shocking moment ‘Coventry and Brentford fans’ fight in street with glasses thrown and KO’d man kicked on floor

Cov beat QPR in the capital while Brentford were headed home from a defeat against Wolves.

Israel : Bnei Sakhnin - Beitar Jerusalem - 16/04/2023

Source : https://www.i24news.tv/

Beitar Jerusalem supporters invade the pitch



Fans of Beitar Jerusalem's soccer team invaded the field during a soccer game on Sunday evening, causing a stoppage in their match against Bnei Sakhnin in Petah Tikva, according to Israeli media.

The pitch invasion reportedly came in the midst of a tense atmosphere at the neutral site stadium, after Sakhnin supporters threw flares onto the field at the beginning of the match.

AJ Auxerre - FC Nantes - 15/04/2023

Source : https://www.lyonne.fr/

At 1:30 p.m., a fight broke out in front of the Stades bar between around thirty Nantes and Parisian supporters, before the kick-off.



At 2:30 p.m., some Parisian supporters still present in the bar were escorted to the stadium by the police. The Anti-Crime Brigade (BAC) was on site, alongside police and gendarmes, who protect the bar and the surroundings of Abbé-Deschamps.

16 PSG fans were arrested and two Nantes were injurded.

KARSUD PSG


Nantes

Free fight - ??/04/2023

Source : mail

Bayer Leverkusen vs Brondby IF
10 vs 10
Win BIF

CSKA Sofia - Levski Sofia - 17/04/2023

Source : https://fakti.bg/

Derby à risques ce jour à Sofia


(Archive)

----------------

CSKA


Levski

Colombia : Atlético Nacional - América de Cali - 20/04/2023

Source : https://www.infobae.com/

Due to the severe riots which erupted and opposing police forces to Atletico supporters the game will be play later.

FC Lausanne Sport - Stade Lausanne Ouchy - 16/04/2023

Source : mail

A fight broke out opposing about 15 Lausanne Boys (LS) to a small number of away fans.
Win locals.

Athletic Bilbao - Real Sociedad - 15/04/2023

Source : mail

Police have controlled a group of Herri Norte (Bilbao) and RSF Firm (Sociedad).

Free fight - 14/04/2023

Source : mail

FC Saarbrucken + Nancy + Nice vs Dynamo Dresden
30 vs 30
Win for the coalition

Poland: Free fight - ??/04/2023

Source : mail

Wloclavia Wlocawek vs Elana Torun
U23
10 vs 10
Win Elana Torun

Zenit St Petersburg - Spartak Moscow - 16/04/2023

Source : mail

Spartak

AIK Stockholm - Hammarby IF - 16/04/2023

Source : mail

AIK

Grenoble Foot 38 - AS Saint-Etienne - 17/04/2023

Source: https://www.ledauphine.com/

A football match placed under close surveillance

About 250 police and gendarmes will be mobilized on Monday evening for the Ligue 2 match between the GF 38 and ASSE at the Stade des Alpes, whose respective supporters maintain a solid and frank enmity. A decree from the prefect of Isère strictly regulates the movements of ultras from Saint-Etienne. A water launcher truck will also be ready to intervene.

[ /url]
On January 16, 2010, riots broke out in the visitor parking lot during the match between GF 38 and ASSE counting for the Ligue 1 championship. The gendarmerie and the police had to intervene.

-------------------------

Source : https://www.ledauphine.com/

Troubles in the stands

While the surroundings of the Stade des Alpes were rather calm until the start of the evening, incidents broke out in the Grenoble area shortly before the start of the match. Despite the strong presence of stewards and law enforcement, contact took place between supporters of the two camps in the East stand on the side of the visitor parking lot.

Some Saint-Etienne fans managed to cross the gate separating them from the rest of the stadium but they were able to be contained. Seats were also torn off to be used as projectiles. Calm finally returned at kick-off.

The football hooligans fighting for Ukraine - 19/04/2023

Source: https://unherd.com/

Donetsk's ultras are the ultimate survivors

“Tottenham were hard. They fought well.” Vitalii Ovcharenko pauses and sips his tea, having earlier refused my offer of a beer. “I remember it clearly. There weren’t many of them and they were heavily watched by the police. But, still, they managed to give the police the slip and get into the city, where we were already hunting them. We always tried to fight foreign fans who came to Donetsk. Finally, our scouts informed us where they were: about 10-15 hooligans had been seen in the centre, and we attacked. I must give them credit — the Tottenham fans were tougher than Celtic and Manchester United, especially in terms of their morality.”

What does he mean by “morality”? “Being an effective hooligan is about many things, but in the end it comes down to how brave you are, and from this internal force — we call it a ‘moral’ force — comes your physical success. In that respect, football hooliganism is very similar to fighting in a war.”

Vitalii is unique, even among the variegated pool of characters I have met in almost a decade of covering Ukraine. A Special Forces soldier, a social media guru responsible for reaching out to the Russians, and an intellectual with a PhD in “the political, economic and social relations between Ukraine and Scandinavia”, he is also a former leading member of Shakhtar Donetsk’s football hooligan firm, “Sever-8”.

Vitalii doesn’t look like your average member of Ukrainian infantry, or indeed any member of a football gang. Tall, thin, delicate-featured, and wearing a black roll neck, he looks more like a French existentialist. But now he is very much a soldier — albeit an odd one.

He first joined up in 2014 for a year, before returning at the start of last year’s all-out invasion, when the Russians were just miles from Kyiv. Along with a small group of comrades, he drove through the forests deep into occupied territory to conduct reconnaissance. In those early days, it was particularly dangerous: no-one knew where or exactly how many Russian soldiers there were. But, through some help from Ukrainian citizens, he eventually managed to get their coordinates and their bases were destroyed by Ukrainian artillery. “Yes, I was only a transmitter of information,” he says. “But it was very nice to learn later how many Russian occupiers were killed as a result of my work.”

But it soon emerged that he could do so much more than pick off occupying forces. Vitalii was born in the Donetsk region and lived there until just before the beginning of the Russian occupation, in 2014. Before the war, he explains, it was “morally” difficult to fight in the places where you lived when you were a child. But now this is a strength; unlike many of his army friends from other regions, he understands the local history and nuances of Donetsk. “I know what I am fighting for as a soldier and fighting for as a social activist, because every day I see the broken villages and cities of my region. I don’t need to talk about patriotism or love for the motherland. Every house destroyed by the Russians says more than all the phrases about patriotism ever could.”

Russian propaganda has had an indoctrinating effect on the people there — after all, children who were eight years old in 2014 are now almost 18. But the more time that has passed, the more people understand what is happening, and recognise the changes around them. They can remember an optimistic city, with a football team that won league championships. But now much of the city is run down; the expensive hotels bustling with tourists are just a memory.

It is these memories of Donetsk’s potential which drive Vitalii, who, alongside his hooliganism, was a social activist before the war — he remembers protesting the building of a new municipality building in a park. He was always active, always mobilising. So since the start of the war — he served for a year in 2014 before rejoining last year — he was never just a soldier. Straightaway, he started making videos and putting them on YouTube, talking to people inside occupied Donetsk. And thanks to his local knowledge, and strong Donetsk accent, they were successful. He could speak to those inside in a language they understand, fusing military communications with his personal stripe of activism. “No matter how bad the situation is, always write and show your position online. Show your opinion. Because even one tweet can change a lot. I also started to bring more of my personal life online, so that people can see that I am not just an account, but first of all, a normal person.”

He remembers making a YouTube video just before February of last year — without, he says, much “strategic thought” — to try to help students inside Donetsk go to university in Ukraine-controlled territory. He asked them to write in if they were interested, not expecting many replies. But, though the Russians have tried to block YouTube in the occupied territories, locals are able to bypass it, download his videos, and share them on other channels such as Telegram. And then they started writing in. He was shocked, but got to work, contacting friends at his old university, which had moved its site to Vinnytsia in central Ukraine. He managed to get a dozen kids out and sent them to study there. “It was surreal,” he remembers. “They had lived all their lives with a curfew, and never did anything in the evenings; they didn’t even know what Apple Pay was. Most of the youth would like to leave the occupied areas, whether to Russia or Ukraine. They’ve had enough.”

Then there is his military communications work, which is almost always targeted at those living under Russian rule inside the territories. “Friends and Ukrainians who live under occupation,” reads one Facebook post. “If you have information on the locations of Russian occupation troops; locations of base equipment, the deployment of soldiers and so on — write to my Twitter or Facebook or Telegram. Anonymity and cooperation guaranteed!”

Russia, of course, does its best to maintain total informational control of the occupied Ukraine. Much of what goes on inside, especially in terms of Ukrainian resistance, goes unreported. One of his greatest communications victories, was helping to break through the Russian comms siege of Donetsk. People inside were protesting, he told me, and it was only his tweets that broke the informational silence around what was happening on the ground.

In a similar way, he tries to maintain links with his old contacts inside — though it’s not always successful. One friend, he says, became a pro-Russian separatist after falling for the usual Russian propaganda. “That the memory of the grandfathers who fought in the Second World War would be marginalised by Kyiv following the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution; that the Russian language was not respected in Ukraine. He became impossible to get through to.”

Things, though, changed after the first HIMARS rockets struck Donetsk. Previously the Russians, Vitalii explains, felt “invulnerable” in those areas. They believed “nobody…could touch them”. But, the day after Ukraine’s rockets started to fall, one old friend called him. “‘Ok’, he told me. ‘I’ll give you some insights from time to time so when you come and liberate us, you’ll put in a good word for me and I won’t be severely punished, okay?’” He can’t say who they are, but claims some of those helping him are in influential positions.

It’s very much a portfolio military career, and I ask him how he thinks his days as a hooligan have influenced it. “Football hooliganism taught me a lot about how to prepare for war, and what to do in war,” he replies. “Most important, by far, is preparing oneself before battle. It’s normal to be afraid before you fight, and through hooliganism, I learned how to understand and manage the fear. Because the emotions before a fight and before a shooting battle are quite similar. When you are on the bus going to the operation or in the car to the match, there is no turning back. On each occasion, you need to explain to yourself that you are already there; you need to survive the three or four days at the front or three or four hours at the game, and to be as organised as possible. And then you need to think about what you are going to do when you return. That is key.”

Being able to manage people, he added, especially in terms of correctly assessing what they can and cannot do in extreme situations, when a decision must be made in seconds, is also vital to both disciplines. As is the ability to organise and motivate large groups — some people need to be taken aside and spoken to; some need to be shouted at.

For Vitalii, hooliganism is not about beer and fighting, but something else. Ukrainian football hooligans, he explains, do not try to kill each other. The main thing is to win in a fair fight. No weapons are used, and if anyone ever did they’d be “punished” by their own fans. He often became friends with representatives of opposing clubs — though not on match days. “I am proud that Donetsk hooligans came to the defence of EuroMaidan in Donetsk from pro-government thugs; I am proud that Shakhtar hooligans took part in the EuroMaidan events in Kyiv; I am proud that Shakhtar’s hooligans were among the first to go to defend Ukraine against Russia,” he says. “When society thought we were just about beer and fighting, we showed that we love Ukraine, and the values of freedom, which we are ready to die for. Among the hooligans of Shakhtar there are already 10 boys who have died in the war.”

As our meeting draws to a close, I have one final question.

“Arsenal?” He replies thoughtfully. “No, we never fought them. I don’t remember them ever showing up.”

KV Oostende - OH-Leuven - 15/04/2023

Source: mail

Throughout the day, around 150 OHL supporters will be in Ostend: 1 group dressed all in black and 1 other made up of families and ordinary fans.
An hour and a half before the game the 1st group takes the road to the stadium. They will cross paths with a local group who will behave like ordinary fans before arriving at the level of the OHL group and putting on their hoods.
Five minutes after this, the group from Ostend will attack a café where the 2nd group from OHL was standing before fleeing.
The 1st group of OHL will arrive too late, and at the same time as the police.

OGC Nice - FC Basel - 20/04/2023

Source: https://www.france24.com/

France bans Basel football fans from Nice to prevent clashes

French authorities on Tuesday banned Basel fans from the second leg of the Europa Conference League quarter-finals in Nice to avoid confrontations between rival supporters.

The mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, last week urged that fans of the Swiss club be banned from Thursday's game.

On Tuesday, the Ministry of the Interior issued an official order, stating that Basel away games are "frequently sources of disturbance to the public order".

"Relations between supporters of the two teams, who share an opposing political ideology, are marked by animosity," the ministry said.


Nice fans were involved in violent confrontations with visiting Cologne supporters last September, with 32 people injured.

---------------------

Source : Mail

Free-fight 14x14
45 sec
Basel won

England : The violent thug who was caught on camera dishing out punches in a brutal street fight between Brentford and Coventry fans is a former Premier League club player - 17/04/2023

Source : https://ukdaily.news/

The most violent thug in a brutal hooligan street fight involving Brentford fans is a former Premier League club player, MailOnline has learned.

Dean Wells, 38, was part of a crowd of Brentford supporters who clashed with Coventry City fans outside Euston station over the weekend.

He was caught on cell phone footage appearing to punch and kick a fan after the boy had already been felled and was slumped against a wall. And was later arrested.

Wells briefly played for Brentford when they were still a second division side in 2003 and was most recently assistant manager at West London non-League Bedfont FC.

He was jailed in 2011 for fighting Leyton Orient supporters.