GERMANY:UK: FOOTBALL HOOLIGANISM UPDATE скачать в хорошем качестве

GERMANY:UK: FOOTBALL HOOLIGANISM UPDATE

(3 Jun 1996) Eng/Ger/Nat The British hosts of the Euro '96 football championships are bracing themselves for a massive influx of fans ahead of the kickoff at London's Wembley Stadium on Saturday. While organisers are planning a red carpet welcome for fans, police are planning to use special powers to detain and expel known troublemakers arriving from the Continent. Football hooliganism may once have been regarded as the English disease, but thuggery associated with the sport has become widespread in Europe. APTV visited Stuttgart and Frankfurt to talk to German hooligans. French and German football fans at a European Championship warm-up game in Stuttgart. These two teams have no real history of violent fan confrontations, but the German hooligans are still very visible. Along with the British and Dutch, German hooligans make up the largest and most violent of troublemakers set to arrive in England for Euro '96. In Germany, gangs such as the Adlerfront (Eaglefront), the Hamburg Ultras and the BFCs from Berlin repeatedly slug it out with each other. The warm-up match between the French and Germans passed uneventfully - even so, police kept a close guard to avert any outbreaks of violence. The German authorities know the hooligans very well - they have developed a network of undercover cops who know each local scene and its leaders. And earlier this month, the Germany Football Intelligence Unit warned German hooligans would not be able to resist the temptation to confront their opponents in England. As this fan says, German supporters are ready to do battle. SOUNDBITE: (German) "England is mandatory, four weeks of brawling in England!" SUPER CAPTION: Stuttgart Hooligan Just outside Frankfurt there is a well-known hooligan hangout - here hard-core fans get together to celebrate their teams' victories. The music is loud, the lights low, and the walls plastered with stickers and grafitti. When gangs hit the warpath, it may seem like random violence. But there are unwritten laws that at least the older hooligans follow. SOUNDBITE: (German) "We like to fight, I like to fight too, but everything in degrees and it should run on a certain track. Recently in Italy one of us got stabbed by a Brit, had a huge wound on his back and almost died. It was in the papers, real close call. That's not the point of it." SUPER CAPTION: Leverkusen Hooligan SOUNDBITE: (German) "I hope that we're a big German family in England, we can go at it again later in Germany but not at the European Championships. That's how I see it anyway." SUPER CAPTION: Frankfurt Hooligan German police are now cooperating with Britain's Scotland Yard in an effort to minimise violence and disruptions at the Euro '96 games. Together, they have tried to prevent known troublemakers from travelling to England. German police are also sending officers to assist the British during Euro '96. SOUNDBITE: (German) "We had a long time to prepare for the European Championships. We've tried to identify which members of the scene are going to England. Six German officers were selected though ZIS in Dusseldorf - the English did not want any more - to point out German hooligans in England." SUPER CAPTION: Willi Pietsch, Chief of the Department of Youth Violence. Germany's special unit uses state of the art equipment to keep an eye on the hooligans. All potential troublemakers are video-taped for police records. Some are immediately arrested; others face fines later. The police have developed a rating system ranging from "A" to "C" - "A" denotes ordinary fans, "B" questionable ones and "C" actual hooligans. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...