With their nation’s soccer hooligans spotlighted after a string of high-profile incidents, Polish authorities on Tuesday launched a new legal crackdown aimed at stemming trouble at Euro 2012.
“This sporting event cannot be dominated by aggression, by hooligans and thugs,” Polish Justice Minister Krzysztof Kwiatkowski told reporters as he presented a raft of measures to be in place in time for the European championships.
A key plank is fast-track handling of troublemakers, with special rooms being set up in stadiums with video links to courthouses from which judges will try the defendants.
Photo: AFP
The system was used at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver last year, Kwiatkowski said.
In addition, hooligans who have already been banned from Poland’s stadiums face electronic tagging.
About 1,800 people are currently serving hooliganism-related stadium bans in Poland, a nation of 38 million. They will be jailed right away if they breach their tag conditions.
Kwiatkowski also said sentences for bomb-hoaxers would be beefed up to eight years from the current six months.
The measures will be put to parliament next month.
The 16-nation, quadrennial soccer showcase kicks off in Warsaw on June 8 next year, and ends with the final on July 1 in Kiev, capital of co-host Ukraine.
Longstanding concerns about hooligans heightened after Poland fans clashed with security forces at an away friendly against Lithuania on March 25.
“On the hooligan side we are concerned, but I know the Polish government is also concerned,” Euro 2012 tournament director Martin Kallen said last week.
“They know they have a problem — they have a huge image problem. There are always hooligans around every match day in the league, but the government is making the right steps for the future,” he added.
Since the Iron Curtain fell two decades ago, some Polish fans have formed groups idolizing the UK’s once-notorious hooligan “firms.”
Rival clubs’ hooligans organize ustawki, or arranged fights. A rumble between about 150 in the central Polish city of Lodz in January claimed the life of a 24-year-old man.
Hardliners also have clout inside stadiums.
Polish sports pages this week have been dominated by a post-match assault on Legia Warsaw defender Jakub Rzezniczak by Piotr Staruchowicz, leader of a group that rules the club’s tough Zyleta stand.
Staruchowicz — who Legia said would “never” be allowed back after trouble in 2009, before fans hit back with a match boycott — faces a two-year ban by the club.
The Polish newspaper Fakt called that “laughable”, saying that in the UK, hooligans face lifetime bans.
Another worry is racism.
“Violent hooligan groups and racist groups have a significant overlap, which makes for a dangerously explosive mixture,” said Rafal Pankowski, who runs a monitoring project for the Football Against Racism in Europe network.
He recently issued a report logging scores of far-right incidents in both Poland and Ukraine.
Neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic banners and slogans are notably shocking given the region’s World War II history, when millions perished at the hands of the occupying Germans, including the overwhelming majority of its Jews.
“The risk of racist incidents at Euro 2012 does not need to be dramatized, but it cannot be dismissed either,” Pankowski said.
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