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German police watching soccer hooligans
(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-02-14 06:49
DUESSELDORF, Germany: German police are busily amassing intelligence from
around the world in a bid to prevent this year's football World Cup finals being
marred by brawling hooligans.
Expectations are low among Germans that the World Cup will live up to its
official slogan, "A Time to Make Friends".
More than three-quarters of people expect hooliganism in the 12 cities where
the matches will be played, while two-thirds believe fans will clash with police
in the stadiums, according to a poll carried out by the TNS Emnid institute.
Such fears are not unfounded - the most recent World Cup played in Europe,
the 1998 tournament in France, was scarred by brawling English fans and an
attack by German skinheads which left a French policeman physically and mentally
disabled.
The last finals, in Japan and South Korea in 2002, were trouble-free, but
most observers attributed that to the fact they were staged far from the
traditional European 'centres' of hooliganism, such as England and The
Netherlands.
The wide availability of cheap beer in Germany, the fact that the country is
served by cheap flights from all over Europe and its many shared borders make
the 2006 tournament potentially high-risk.
Yet Michael Endler, a high-ranking German police officer and an expert on
hooligans from the Office of Criminal Investigation in the western city of
Duesseldorf, said there was no reason to panic.
"Not every supporter brandishing a country's flag and holding a glass of beer
is going to commit violence," Endler said.
Endler and his staff from the Central Sport Information Unit (ZIS) will play
a key role during the finals.
They say the key to preventing violence is intelligence-gathering.
"During the World Cup, we will process between 800 and
1,000 pieces of information from Germany and abroad," Endler said.
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