In the last few weeks, there have been some large police operations in Saarbrücken during soccer matches, resulting in attacks on fans by the police, but also in solidarity and resistance against the police.

At the match between 1. FC Saarbrücken and SC Preußen Münster on December 2nd, the police carried out such a massive operation, which resulted in an attack on the fans from Münster. The reason for the operation was an insult against a policewoman by a soccer fan during the fan march to the stadium. In their press release, the cops state that they wanted to establish the identity of the person in question. This led to solidarity from other fans who wanted to prevent the police from pulling people out. The cops responded to this with a massive pepper spray attack on the crowd. The fans in turn responded with punches and throwing objects. In the end, the cops were still able to carry out their action and pull out the person they were looking for.

To all appearances, however, the police did not actually seem to be concerned with the aforementioned person. Rather, it was probably a concrete goal of the police to provoke an escalation in order to train their police forces in riot control (in this case in the fight against larger crowds) on the soccer fans. Furthermore, such excessive police operations and the occupation of the city centre and train stations by the cops also serve to deliberately promote reactionarization by gradually accustoming people to such scenes.

This impression is also confirmed by the statement from Fanhilfe Münster on the police operation. First of all, they negate the reason given by the cops in their press release for the large-scale operation that the soccer match in question was a match between two clubs with strongly opposed fans. However, Fanhilfe Münster contradicts the description of the " hostile relationship". They write: "In their press release, the Saarland police speak of a hostile relationship between the supporters of both teams. We are not aware of any enmity. Rather, there was a friendly exchange between individual fans of both sides on match day." They also write of a conspicuously high, incomprehensible police presence, including a helicopter deployment to monitor the fans. According to Fanhilfe, the atmosphere among the fans was peaceful and relaxed until the person in question was pulled out. Only the police were conspicuous for occasionally pushing fans, but they let themselves be unprovoked by this. Apparently, the police were desperate for physical confrontations with the fans.The fact that the police ended up pulling the person out of the ranks of the fans is a targeted provocation of such a confrontation, because it is clear to any thinking person that such a measure in the middle of the fan march will result in the solidarity of the other soccer fans, who will then confront the police.

This specific example of growing repression against soccer fans is not an isolated case. We recently reported on police repression against soccer fans in Hesse and Hamburg. The consequence of the repression is also resistance from various fans against the attacks and harassment by the cops. They also had to realize this a few days later on the night of December 7th. Another soccer match also took place in Saarbrücken between 1.FC Saarbrücken and Eintracht Frankfurt. There was also a large-scale police operation at this match, but without any big incidents. But later in the night after the match, however, there were clashes between fans and the police. The background to this was the arrest of two fans of FC Saarbrücken, who had been harassing other soccer fans in a bar. According to the police, the two people resisted, whereupon they were forcibly brought to the ground. The cops also used a Taser on one person, which is a life-threatening weapon, as has been seen in previous police operations. However, the violent arrest was followed by a demonstration of solidarity by around 50 other people (mainly soccer fans, according to the police) from the surrounding bars, who then attacked the police. The police then needed to call in reinforcements and only managed to get the situation under control with them. However, apart from the two people already arrested, no other person could be arrested, even though several attacks were made on the cops during the confrontation. In their press report, the police wrote of five police officers who suffered facial injuries, bruises and abrasions from the confrontation.

Soccer Ultras from FC Saarbrücken carry a banner against the police. Source: X (former Twitter)

Afterwards, public representatives of the police were quick to comment on this. In a manner that could rightly be described as embarrassing whining, they complained about the violence against police forces and the growing hatred towards the police. Markus Sehn, the Saarland state chairman of the German Police Union (DPoiG), for example, spoke of "soccer thugs who use sport as a cover for their antisocial behaviour". He also called on other fans to distance themselves from such acts of violence and demanded consistent judging of rebellious fans. The police union (GdP) also amuses us with a statement from December 7. However, this is not even about the events surrounding the confrontation, but about a banner that was previously displayed in the fan block of FC Saarbrücken. The banner in question read "NIQUE LA POLICE" in French, which translates to "Fuck the police"and is obviously directed against the cops. The regional branch of the GdP is "disturbed" by these "hate campaigns against police officers". In the statement, GdP regional chairman Andreas Rinnert calls on the club and the stadium to prevent such actions in future. Finally, he also said: "I can't understand why nobody in the stadium intervened to remove the banner. It's actually a paradox: while the Saarland police regularly do everything they can to ensure that such soccer matches can take place at all and guarantee safety, they are denigrated by such vile abuse!" But every soccer fan who has ever experienced how the police " guarantee safety" at soccer matches will never remove such banners.