2023-12-11 09:30:01
At the end of August, in Monaco, Chance wanted Atlético de Madrid to face Celtic, Feyenoord and Lazio in the Champions League. A thousand kilometers away, the Police took note: they were not worried about the Colchoneros game, but rather the fans. ultras of their rivals who stir up the hornet’s nest of violence in football.
With the national panorama under control, The alert is usually activated when these radicals from foreign teams travel to any point in Spain. Although international cooperation and control over ticket sales manage to reduce violence to a minimum, cases continue to occur periodically.
“When many come without entry It is another incentive to reinforce security, because altercations can occur. They are complicated devices, but incidents occur very few,” explains an inspector from the General Information Commission (CGI) with experience in these radical groups in an interview with EFE.
The last ones, the caused by one of the radical factions of the Portuguese Benfica in the match against Real Sociedad at the beginning of November, including the launching of flares inside the stadium, or the six Dutch ultras from Feyenoord arrested for participating in a brawl in the VIP area of the Metropolitan stadium.
It gets even more complicated when ultra diplomacy comes into play, international twinning and enmities between groups. This is the case, for example, of Atlético-Lazio next Wednesday, “marked in red” by Information agents since it is expected to be “hot” in the streets.
The reason? The Atlético Front maintains a good relationship with the Curva Sud, the radical followers of AS Roma, and the Ultra Sur, of Real Madrid, are allied with the Ultras Lazio, historically known as ‘Irriducibili’.
“It’s going to be the most difficult game (of the Atleti group) by far, because ultras from Roma and Lazio may appear They are going to come with the intention of making trouble. They are going to try to search Madrid in any way possible,” says the inspector.
The radicals, he points outthey are part of a “dark world” in which ideologies set the course, but where sports rivalry and hatred prevail. That is why the members of the Frente Atlético and the Ultras Lazio, despite both being far-right, are at odds with each other.
From the CGI They assume that the Anti-Violence Commission will declare the match high risk and a large police force will be deployed to control the nearly 3,000 Lazio fans who will have tickets for the match – plus those who travel without them – and the radicals from the Curva Sud or Ultra South who may join the party.
Slight uptick in altercations
The Spanish ultras, a mass of nearly 10,000 people, “Right now they are not creating a social alarm” in national territory despite the fact that the number of violent incidents has increased in recent years, says the police officer.
The last two seasons ended with 80 and 87 alternates respectivelywhile so far this year around twenty have been registered, which represents “a small rebound.”
“But we cannot compare it with what happens in the rest of Europe, where every now and then there are stabbed and murdered. Spain is one of the safest countries on the continent, and in football too,” she emphasizes.
This is due, he assures, to the fact that the Police, the judges and The league They are in the same boat: that of zero tolerance. “It’s a hidden statistic, but almost every weekend we avoid altercations,” she points out.
Far away is the rise of radical groups after the 1982 World Cup or the deaths of Guillermo Alfonso Lázaro, a 13-year-old boy whose life was taken by the impact of a flare in Sarriá in 1992, and Aitor Zabaleta, a young Real Sociedad fan stabbed 25 years ago in the surroundings of Vicente Calderón.
“The ultra movement itself has been decliningbut we are not saved from the possibility that any day, in any fight, we may have a misfortune,” warns the police officer.
It refers to cases such as that of Jimmy, the ultra of Deportivo de La Coruña who died in 2014 in a brawl against the Atlético Front, or the fight between ultras of Numancia and Cornellá on May 27, in which one of those involved was in a coma for several months. These are isolated events, but they require close monitoring of the radicals.
The ‘dracas’, a diversion
A wooded area on the outskirts of Madrid, twelve against twelve, with no weapons other than the knuckles and just over a minute of action. This is how the Atlético Front and two of Feyenoord’s radical factions, the Rotterdam Jongeren Kern and the Firm FIIIR, faced off before the match their teams played at the beginning of October.
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The Police were aware of this ‘draca’, but could do little else: Without a complaint, there is no possible investigation.. However, this phenomenon, which comes from countries where the ultra scene is more thriving, such as Poland or Russia, does not worry agents greatly.
“It’s fun for them, they’re not groups that stick around because they hate each other. In Spain there are few and it is not something that worries us too much, but the day someone is seriously injured and reports it, the appropriate measures will have to be taken to eradicate them,” the inspector concludes.
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