Five hundred England soccer supporters have been detained in Stuttgart in the two days leading up to their side's second-round match with Ecuador for mostly drunken and aggressive behaviour, police said on Sunday.
STUTTGART: Five hundred England soccer supporters have been detained in Stuttgart in the two days leading up to their side's second-round match with Ecuador for mostly drunken and aggressive behaviour, police said on Sunday.
Riot police held 378 England fans last night after they clashed with German fans, throwing bottles, tables and chairs in a square in the city centre. On Friday, 122 were held for aggressive behaviour.
"I don't consider these people to be English football supporters because they actually damage the reputation of the many thousands of real English supporters that will be here today," Stephen Thomas, the head of the British police team working in Germany, said on Sunday.
Some 60,000 England fans were expected to descend on Stuttgart for their side's match against Ecuador today and several hundred clashed with German fans last night after the Germans watched their side's 2-0 second-round victory over Sweden on giant TV screens.
Riot police intervened, with some on horses, to separate the two sets of groups and the English fans were eventually detained after several hours. Police said five to 10 German fans were held.
Jens Grittner, spokesman for the local World Cup organising committee, said at FIFA's daily briefing: "No incidents involving known hooligans took place in Stuttgart although there was some trouble. You have to bear in mind the huge number of people partying every day in Germany, the huge numbers involved and the small number involved in Stuttgart. The police responded immediately, dealt with the situation and quickly had it under control."
City ban:
Under German law police can detain individuals for threatening behaviour or if they suspect they are likely to commit a crime and it does not constitute a full arrest.
It also means the number of those held tends to be higher than would occur in a similar situation in England.
Of the 378 held on Saturday night, 375 have been released but they are banned from returning to the city centre.
The English have a long history of soccer-related violence but there had been little trouble in Germany so far, with only a small number of arrests for mostly drunken behaviour or people trying to get into a stadium without a ticket.
Banning orders issued before the tournament began prevented some 3,800 known trouble makers from travelling to Germany and Thomas said police would study the evidence and apply for banning orders for those held yesterday if possible.
Thomas said there had been fewer England fans than normal in Stuttgart for the week before a game and said this had been part of the problem.
"We expect the vast majority of the 60,000 to arrive during the day today," he said. "What that has meant is that we haven't seen the carnival and the great atmosphere that real England supporters can bring to a city. Instead the focus has been on perhaps as many as 500 individuals who start drinking, some of them at 8.30 in the morning. As the day goes on their behaviour degenerates and that's exactly what we saw here yesterday and on the day before."
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