Fan rights in Germany: Police databases, surveillance and civil rights protests | Sports activities | German soccer and main worldwide sports activities information | DW

Thousands of German football fans returned to the Bundesliga stadiums last weekend.

While the site cannot yet be fully utilized and most of the Bundesliga ultra groups have not yet come, the mood on the opening day of the season among players, clubs and officials was equally positive.

“After the pandemic had destroyed the stadium experience for the fans for a long time, it felt as if the atmosphere had imploded this weekend,” says the official website of the German Football League (DFL).

The fan culture is one of the unique selling points of the Bundesliga, fans from all over the world often fly to Germany to get a taste of the atmosphere.

However, the reputation that football fans enjoy within Germany is often completely different, especially when it comes to the fans who are primarily responsible for this atmosphere: the organized fan groups and the ultras.

Often demonized as “criminals”, “hooligans” or “so-called fans” by the media, police and politicians, the image of a lawless, controlled element of society that leads to violations of the civil rights of fans is cultivated.

Fans in police databases

According to the German soccer magazine Kicker, the Bavarian authorities keep an extensive record of organized soccer fans in the country.

The data of 1,644 fans that have been collected since January 2020 have been stored in the “EASy Violence and Sports” database since June 15.

The fans included in the database include active supporters of FC Bayern Munich, the second division side Nuremberg and the third division side 1860 Munich.

The entry in the database, according to Kicker, is not determined on the basis of a criminal offense by an individual or even a suspicion on the basis of evidence, but rather on the basis of an “individual assessment” by the police.

In some cases, the information stored in the database includes the games that the person attended and the people they came into contact with during the game.

According to the Bavarian state government, the database is used by the authorities to initiate “targeted police operations” in connection with football matches. The persons listed in the database are not proactively informed of their inclusion in the database.

This is not the only database that the German authorities keep on football fans. The controversial database of violent offenders sport (literally: violent offender, sport), in which football fans are classified by the police as “potentially violent” or “actively seeking violence”, is still in operation, whereby a preliminary investigation against a person is often sufficient to find out regardless of the outcome to be included in the investigation.

Inclusion in the database of violent offenders in sport can have an impact on individuals’ freedom to travel as well as their personal and professional lives.

A recent study in the Bundestag found that more than 1,000 names were added to the database between March and December 2020, although fans were largely unable to attend football matches during this period due to the pandemic.

According to the federal government, the additions to the database are due to “disturbances in connection with the so-called ghost games and incidents that occurred in third places” – an indication of the practice of soccer hooligans to go to abandoned places to get one another fight.

“Fan rights = civil rights”: Dynamo Dresden supporters protest against new police laws in Saxony

Supporters and civil rights protests

Because of their frequent arguments with the law, organized fans in Germany have recently become active in political circles and are demanding more civil rights.

In June, a demonstration against a planned assembly law for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia took place in the city of Düsseldorf. Among the demonstrators were organized fan and ultra groups from Fortuna Düsseldorf and FC Köln, local rivals on the square but united behind a common cause apart from it.

Organized fans took part in similar demonstrations in other states as well. In Bavaria in 2018, among other things, some fan and ultra groups from FC Bayern Munich took part in a protest against a new law that provides the police with more extensive measures. Elsewhere, the Ultras from Dynamo Dresden 2019 were among the loudest critics of a similar law in Saxony.

Football crime is falling

While there are occasional violent incidents in connection with soccer games and hooliganism is still present in German soccer, police statistics show that soccer violence is more the exception than the rule.

According to statistics from the Central Information Center for Sports Operations (ZiS) of the German police, the number of criminal proceedings in connection with football games in the first two German divisions in 2018/19 reached a ten-year low, the last season at full capacity before the pandemic (4,750).

The number of investigations into serious bodily harm was 1,126, the lowest level since the 2007/08 season. The same trend also applies to other offenses such as vandalism (up to 303) and administrative offenses (135).

For comparison: the number of viewers in Germany’s first two divisions this season was just under 19 million.

The tendencies revealed in the statistics also led to some voices from the German political system taking the criminalization of football fans into their own hands.

In recent years, several Green politicians have vehemently questioned the police treatment of football fans and the various databases in which their data is stored, even without criminal acts.

Football-related crime has fallen sharply in recent years

Legal aid for fans is bearing fruit

The treatment of football fans by the authorities is often successfully challenged by the so-called fan aid.

This week a regional court in Cologne ruled that the practice of filming football fans all the time without suspicion is illegal and should be stopped. The practice has established itself in football stadiums all over Germany and is intended to deter fans from setting pyrotechnics.

“What you see on such recordings are mostly topless men who sing, scream and beat the drums. Depending on your personal preference, these are perhaps somewhat tasteless and strange forms of spending your free time, but by no means indicate criminal activities. ”“ The court ruling said.

In another case, a police officer was fined 9,000 euros (10,500 US dollars) as compensation for breaking the jaw of a Borussia Dortmund fan during an operation at Dortmund Central Station after the away derby against Schalke in 2019 while the latter lay on the floor.

Whether through databases or legal challenges, the tense relationships between organized football fans and authorities in Germany are unlikely to ease in the foreseeable future.