When it comes to collective punishment, it’s fans/clubs versus politics/police: this is how Swiss football fell apart

It’s happening in Geneva. About 300 Valais hooligans attacked police officers with bottles and stones in frustration over the 5-0 defeat to Servette. Five are injured. The approval authorities react immediately and exclude the Sion fans from the next home match. And gives her probation. Sion loses to YB without a hair. And gets out later.

Orgy of violence at Lucerne train station

A few days later, violence escalated between the rival fan groups from Lucerne and St. Gall and the law enforcement officers at the Lucerne train station. Even uninvolved passersby are injured. The punishment: the host sectors of both clubs are closed for the coming match and in direct matches for the entire season.

The cascade model, which was adopted a week before the riots in Geneva, is used for the first time. Only then will it be sent for consultation, which the fan associations refuse to do. Now the Conference of Cantonal Directors of Justice and Police (KKJPD) is evaluating the results and deciding on how to proceed. But only marginal adjustments will probably take place, because the political will to definitively implement this step-by-step model is great. Although fans and clubs are strictly against it.

In the worst case, there is a risk of losing

The model provides standardized sentences for crimes of varying severity. Whether inside or outside the stadium. From level three onwards, things get drastic. This comes into play when people get injured and ensures that the fan curve for a home match is closed and that ticket sales are stopped immediately, so that switching to other sectors is not possible. At level five, a game’s license is revoked – so essentially this is a forfeit.

Why don’t politicians see any other model than these collective punishments? Nidwalden government councilor Karin Kayser, co-chairman of the KKKPD, can understand the calls for punishment of individual perpetrators. “But individuals are usually very difficult to reach, because they cannot be recognized by the mask, disappear into the crowd of fans and are often even protected by them.” It is too dangerous for the police to pick the fallible creatures from the crowd. For this reason, a certain degree of solidarity can be expected in supporting the punishments.

YB criticizes the closure of the curve

But the clubs do not want to offer this solidarity. YB, Luzern and FC Basel have made this clear. Because it’s the wrong approach. YB also criticized the closure of the curve following the incidents following YB’s 1-0 win against GC in Zurich at the end of September, when the windows of police vehicles were smashed, a bus was destroyed and a bus driver was threatened with death.

The YB fans react in dismay and claim that the police bombarded them without warning with rubber bullets at eye level, tear gas and pepper spray. YB says it is ‘shameful’ that thousands of fans are being punished for the behavior of a few individuals.

Fan March: The Principle of YB Hope

An attitude that YB still represents today, a few days before the competition concluded with the east curve. “We do not believe in collective punishment. It is clear to us that the prosecution of individual perpetrators must be intensified,” said media director Albert Staudenmann. He appeals to the common sense of all involved regarding the threatened advance of countless fans of various clubs. “We really hope that it will proceed in an orderly manner.” There is no indication of what exactly is planned. “But we still have time until Saturday, when a lot of water can still flow along the Aare.”

Also the Limmat. Yet the FCZ does not want to say much about the planned fan march. “Exchanges have taken place at various levels with individual clubs,” says the city club.

Collaboration: Simon Strimer, Pascal Ruckstuhl