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ULTRA-DANGEROUS
Fears football hooligan ‘ultras’ who arrange brawls on dark web will spark chaos at Euros & target England fans in pubs
The worst offenders come from the German city with the country’s most billionaires
FOOTBALL fans heading to Germany for Euro 24 this summer face a resurgence in far right neo-Nazi hooligans who have been overwhelming the police across Europe.
And the worst offenders come from the city with the country’s highest number of billionaires - one typically more associated with bankers than brawlers.
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Eintracht Frankfurt’s fans have developed such a reputation for violence that they were banned from Napoli’s stadium last year for a Champions League match.
But that didn’t stop them causing mayhem in the Italian city, with their supporters throwing objects, smoke bombs and flares at riot squads, and setting fire to a police car.
As part of a new series, League of Shame, The Sun examines how football hooliganism is seeing an unwelcome resurgence across the continent - and poses a worrying threat to fans ahead of this summer's European Championships.
Eintracht Frankfurt's notorious ultras have already caused violence in London when the team played West Ham. They also brawled in Marseille in France and threw flares at Rangers fans in Seville, Spain.
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Their toughest troublemakers - Brigade Nassau - are said to be made up of martial artists, boxers and bouncers.
Alarmingly for England fans heading over to support Gareth Southgate’s men in June, their second match is in Frankfurt.
And it's not in the stadiums where supporters are most at risk. Frankfurt yobs like to target bars where opposition supporters are drinking, get into fights at service stations and organise brawls via the dark net.
If there are any disturbances the German police will not take a softly, softly approach. They use pepper spray, tear gas and batons on crowds, and have been known to charge at them on horseback.
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Eintracht Frankfurt fan Carsten Germann, who writes about the beautiful game in Germany, tells The Sun: “I think very many English fans will travel to Germany for the summer and it might be that there are some troubles prepared.”
History of violence
Carsten, 51, knows all too well how quickly cheers can turn to terror in a large crowd.
Moment Eintracht thug takes chair to the face as dashcam footage shows ultras ambush Rangers fans in Seville
He has been an Eintracht Frankfurt fan for over four decades and was twice caught up in violence.
Once, in 2002, the hooligans connected to the team tried to beat up supporters of their local rivals Mainz as they travelled to the ground.
On another occasion in 1993, while watching Cologne versus Schalke 04 with his father, Carsten feared being trampled to death by police horses.
He says: “We were lucky not to get injured or killed within that crowd.”
Carsten believes police have done a good job of weeding out troublemakers by infiltrating hooligan gangs and getting intel about potential flare-ups.
But there is evidence that the bad old days of the 1980s and 1990s, when hooliganism swept across Europe, are returning.
Return of the yobs
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In November there were around 200 injuries following clashes between the police and Eintracht Frankfurt fans outside the team’s Waldstadion.
Stewards and police faced a hail of flares, bottles and metal barriers, with the police alleging that Brigade Nassau were involved.
A couple of months earlier pepper spray was used on visiting Cologne fans in the away end at Waldstadion.
In 2022, when West Ham played Eintracht Frankfurt in the Europa League, the Hammers supporters were attacked two nights in a row, with hooligans in face masks ambushing a pub packed with fans from London.
Most of the troubles don’t take part in the stadiums, they take part in pubs, in highway stations, in parks, in open places in the city centre, you can hardly prevent that. They have appointments made via the dark net for fights
Carsten Germann
It was reported that the ultras searched the centre of the wealthy city for Englishmen in colours to attack.
They also staged a mass pitch invasion after defeating West Ham and caused more trouble in Seville ahead of winning the Europa League that year.
Carsten says: “There was some trouble in the second leg with West Ham in pubs, there were beatings up, smaller skirmishes in Frankfurt pubs.
“Most of the troubles don’t take part in the stadiums, they take part in pubs, in highway stations, in parks, in open places in the city centre, you can hardly prevent that.
“They have appointments made via the dark net for fights.”
'Nazi links'
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When Eintracht Frankfurt played in Marseille, a fan performed a Nazi salute and UEFA charged the club with racist behaviour.
But Brigade Nassau, who wear black T-shirts, deny being a far right organisation.
There are over 500 Frankfurt Ultras, an organisation formed in 1997, taking in a notorious grouping called Inferno Bad Schwalbach.
One member of Brigade Nassau is a bare knuckle streetfighter called Goscha 1996, who can be seen laying into an opponent after flooring him in a warehouse.
Goscha has recently taken to professional MMA bouts in places as far away as Newcastle in England.
EINTRACHT FRANKFURT'S HALL OF SHAME
The German side’s qualification for the Europa League in 2021-22 gave their hooligans the opportunity to menace several countries.
In the group stages 100 fans were arrested in Antwerp in Belgium for pelting the police and attacking locals in a bar.
They went even further against West Ham, first attacking the supporters of the London side in Seville, even though they weren’t playing each other.
The Frankfurt supporters were reported to have descended on an Irish bar in March 2022, having spotted the Hammers fans.
Images posted on social media showed them throwing poles and glass bottles at the supporters from England. Frankfurt’s yobs had already clashed with police in nearby Betis.
Two months later when West Ham played in Frankfurt in the second leg of the semi-final, one of their supporters ended up in hospital following an attack by 15-20 men in face masks in a bar.
Supporters from Glasgow side Rangers were on the receiving end of similar treatment ahead of the final in Seville in May 2022.
Clips show them hurling chairs at Scottish fans drinking in a bar and fighting running battles in the streets.
Most ultras don’t wish to be labelled hooligans. Instead they claim to just want to use flares, fly flags, march together and show their support for the team.
One, named Sascha, claimed the Ultras draw young fans away from violence.
He commented: “In the past, there were only two options as a young fan in the stadium. You could either go to the G-Block or join the hooligans.
“Young people today can also join the Ultras, which is what they do. Every minute you spend working on choreography ideas is also a minute in which you don't think about violence.”
He claimed that there were less hooligans these days, but heavy handed policing led to trouble.
Carsten says: “Eintracht Frankfurt is a very emotional club and it is difficult for the clubs to prevent the violence.”
Lower league louts
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They are certainly not the only side in Germany currently wrestling with dangerous elements.
In November riot police stormed into an altercation at a St Pauli game against Hannover 96, and earlier in the season police accidentally fired a live round into an empty supporter’s coach in Augsburg.
Schalke 04, a big club currently in the second tier of the Bundesliga, can’t shake off their hooligans.
When they played Hansa Rostock in December, the match was held up for half an hour due to Schalke yobs smashing the barrier separating opposing fans.
There were also injuries following violence involving Schalke fans in 2018, 2019 and 2022.
Street battles
Often it is the teams in the lower leagues that experience the worst trouble.
Over in the east of the country, Dynamo Dresden and BFC Dynamo Berlin have a large ultra section that create a heady atmosphere at matches.
Generally they are peaceful, but there have been street battles in the past decade.
GERMAN HOOLIGANS AWAY
LIKE Britain, Germany has been infected by football hooliganism since the 1980s - but it was perhaps worse in the 1990s.
One of the most shocking incidents was during the 1998 World Cup in France, when a policeman was left with permanent brain damage following an attack by German louts.
Two years later at the Euro 2000 tournament in Belgium, an English fan was stabbed as compatriots battled in the streets with German ones.
It seemed to have been stamped out by intelligence led policing, but in the past few years it's flared up again.
In 2017 the kick-off at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium in London had to be delayed due to trouble caused by visiting fans from the German side Cologne.
In 2016, Dynamo Dresden fans clashed with local rivals RB Leipzig, going so far as to hurl a severed bull's head at the opposition.
At a 2021 clash between Dynamo Berlin and FC Lokomotive Leipzig, 20 people were injured - and three years earlier there was a huge brawl when they took on FC Viktoria 1889 Berlin.
Both teams had links with the Communist secret police, known as the Stasi, when they were part of East Germany.
These days they are more likely to have Nazi associations, partly due to the rise of far right parties such as Alternative for Germany.
One club in the east of the country that has been shamed by its Nazi sympathies is fourth tier side Chemnitzer FC.
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In 2019 the CEO resigned after fans were allowed to hold a tribute to a far right hooligan called Thomas Haller, and the club ditched their captain Daniel Frahn after he held up a T-shirt bearing the message “support your local hools”.
With players displaying that attitude the German game clearly has some work to do.
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