ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Football hooligans: Zurich doesn’t want you. The city’s executive committee decided Monday to pursue a zero tolerance programme, folowing confrontations between fans of Grasshopper and FC Zurich Sunday 2 October. The winter pause will see Letzigrund stadium renovations that include separations between groups of fans and the players and referees. Any fireworks will result in the match ending immediately.
The next match at the stadium, between FC Zurich and Basel, considered high risk, will be covered by what the Swiss Football League calls emergncy measures, without detailing these.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A 32-year-old Swiss man was treated in hospital and received 9 stitches when someone attacked him from behind and took a knife to his ear following a fourth league football match in Saint-Barthélemy, canton Vaud. Spectators at the match between FC Talent and FC Cugy began to whistle and verbally abuse each other after the second half started and shortly after the match three members of one team attacked a member of the other team. Fans and some team members then got into a free-for-all.
The player who was knifed was not involved in the fight and was leaving the field when he was attacked.
Bystanders called an ambulance, but the emergency team, too, was attacked when it arrived and had to call for police reinforcements.
Six police teams and a police dog found about 50 people when they arrived. Two were arrested later in the evening after several people were questioned. The police Hooligans squad will now determine if they are to be banned from Swiss football matches.
Police check Servette supporters' buses en route to Sion for football match
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Football (soccer) fans in Switzerland have had a lively weekend, starting with a peaceful protest by Turkish fans Friday in Nyon and ending with Geneva Servette fans setting fire to a field, among other hooliganisms, in Sion.
Turkey lays a club to rest in Nyon
Canton Vaud police say a protest Saturday 27 August by about 100 supporters of Turkey’s Fenerbahce football club gathered at Uefa, the European football offices in Nyon, to protest the club’s exclusion from the Uefa Champions League by the Turkish Football Federation. The group, which hadn’t received permission to gather, came from several areas in Europe and starting at 15:00 put on a fake funeral, laying wreaths at Uefa’s door. Police learned about the planned meeting in advance, via the Internet, and had patrols posted in the area as a precaution, but there were no incidents, they say.
Blatter gives date for promised cleanup plan
Associated Press reported Sunday 28 August that Fifa’s president, Sepp Blatter, will provide details of his promised plan to clean up football in October, following a 20-21 October executive committee meetings in Zurich. Blatter promised to rid the sport of corruption when he was re-elected in June on the heels of a scandal that saw several officials, including his opponent for president, Mohamed bin Hammam, banned from football on various charges of corruption.
Basel improves feeble Super League season start, Servette moves up
Basel, Super League current national champions, improved their feeble start to the season by defeating Thun 2-1, after only six points during their first six matches of the season, on home ground.
Servette moves up “after inflicting a 4-0 away defeat on Uefa Europa League participants FC Sion,” reports Fifa, the International Football Federation. “Servette had the points all but wrapped up after netting three times in the opening 24 minutes through Christopher Routis, Mathias Vitkieviez and Ishamel Yartey, and Vitkieviez completed the triumph with his second in the 65th minute.
“The victory sees Servette move up to third, level on 11 points with fourth-placed Sion, who this week progressed through to the group stages of the Europa League after knocking out Celtic in the play-offs.”
Rubber bullets used after hooligans set fire to field, bash toilets
Police put out fire set in field near Sion by football fans
Servette’s victory was marred, however, by hooligans, who were kept in check, but with difficulty, by 180 police officers monitoring the Sion event, including 30 from Geneva.
Police initially intercepted buses with supporters from Geneva heading for Sion and checked them before escorting them directly to the Tourbillon stadium in Sion, to avoid confrontations between groups of supporters.
Servette supporters then broke through the security system to avoid checks at the entrance and once inside caused considerable damage, breaking doors and WCs. A young woman was hospitalized after being seriously cut in the hand.
Police remained on alert during the match, given that 20 or so supporters who have been banned from Swiss stadiums were spotted in the area. Once the match was over “clans” from the two groups of supporters, which had “copiously insulted each other” during the match, say police, tried to clash, with Sion fans rushing the other groups, but police kept them apart, using rubber bullets and pepper sprays.
Two police officers were checked at the hospital after being hit by rocks. Four FC Sion supporters were arrested, ages 33, 30, 28 and 19.
SION, SWITZERLAND – Sion fans were celebrating Sunday night after their team defeated Neuchatel Xamax 2-0 in a one-sided match, with Neuchatel never rising to the occasion.
It was Sion’s 12th Swiss Cup victory in 12 finals.
The train trip to Basel, site of the final, left a less positive trail, with one person injured by the crowd as it passed through Lausanne, according to ATS news agency. The train cars were heavily damaged, with two fires set in one train and windows broken. A dozen people were reportedly arrested, mainly for having fireworks.
Two new additions after Lausanne-Basel match set early-season example, say Vaud police
(video) Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The hooligans cell of the Vaud Police Department has issued a “perimeters” ban against two Lausanne Hockey Club (LHC) fans, following an ice rink ban issued by the Hockey Club Bienne (HCB) against the two after they caused post-match damage in April in Bienne.
The new ban brings to 49 the number of hooligans given perimeter bans by Vaud authorities since 1 July 2010, when the bans became cross-sport: the two cannot approach any football stadiums or hockey rinks in Vaud.
Cantonal bans can be enforced country-wide, effectively banning the two from all hockey and football arenas throughout Switzerland, for an indefinite period.
“We’re sending out a message at the start of the hockey season,” Vaud police spokesperson Jean-Christophe Sauteral told GenevaLunch. “There are no borders. We want to make it clear that we’re working with other cantons, that we’re all working together.”
Vaud has a relatively small population of hooligans, who cluster around Swiss National League A teams in Zurich, Zug, Basel, Fribourg and Geneva, for example. But the problem, says Sauteral, is Swiss-wide and police are working more closely together than in the past.
Sports clubs can ban hooligans from their own stadiums or rinks, with a national extension for their sport, but the bans don’t carry the weight of law. Seventeen Vaud hooligans have been banned from stadiums and ice rinks in Vaud since July. The sports clubs share the information with police, who can take a ban to the next level: breaking a perimeters ban is a criminal offense under Swiss law.
The two LHC fans were tracked and investigated by the Bienne police hooligans cell, which transmitted information to Lausanne. The two are men, age 20, Swiss and members of the “Ultras” fan club Section Ouest 93. They explained their actions by saying they were down about their team’s loss to Bienne 24 April, and they were provoked by Bienne fans.
They have each been issued a two-year ban.
Swiss Hockey is launching a “respect” campaign for the start of the season to encourage better behaviour on and off the ice:
Then they grow up and become rowdies
St. Gallen and Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Hooligans disrupted trains between Zurich and Basel Wednesday night 28 October after the FC Zurich-FC Basel match in Zurich. Police had to use rubber pellets and pepper spray to try to subdue the rowdies who occupied the Altstetten train station railway tracks, causing transport chaos until just after midnight. A police officer was injured by kicks to the head. The match ended drawn 2-2.
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Violence and hooliganism marked the FC Bâle and AS Roma football match, the first as part of the new Europa League, despite a massive police presence in Basel Thursday night. Some 50 supporters for each side, say the police, caused trouble, starting with a group of Italians before the match, notable for their violence, police said in a press release issued Friday morning 18 September. Basel won the match 2-0 and it was the Basel side hooligans who then flared after the match, throwing bottles at cars with Italian license plates.
Fribourg, Switzerland (TSR/ats, Fre) – Supporters for the Zurich Football Club, traveling to Sion for a match, turned rowdy and attacked their own club’s security bus at the Gruyere autoroute stop in canton Fribourg Thursday evening 10 April.
Lausanne, Switzerland (24 Heures, Fre) – The lack of hooliganism during the Euro 2008 football matches left what appears to be a sense of false calm, and over the weekend of 22-23 November football hooligans reappeared in small but armed numbers in Lausanne, Bern and Zurich.
