World Cup hosts on red alert

2005-11-28 16:33

Berlin - With just over six months to go until the 2006 World Cup finals a hooligan turf war in the small town of Briesen has put hosts Germany on red alert.

A report in Spiegel magazine described how German and Polish hooligans took part in an organised 100-man mass brawl at a forest area in Briesen, an East German town near the Polish border, on Sunday in a fight to establish who would rule the streets at the World Cup finals.

Police confirmed the details of 30 Germans and 55 Poles had been noted down for grievous bodily harm and revealed one of the German hooligans arrested had already been sentenced for his part in the riots at the 1998 World Cup in France.

French police officer Daniel Nivel was on duty in Lens for the Germany-Yugoslavia match in the 1998 World Cup when a gang of 500 neo-Nazis went on a rampage through the town.

Nivel was cornered and beaten savagely with an iron bar and went into a coma with severe brain damage.

"Mass brawl between Germans and Poles," headlined Bild daily. "The hooligan war - a taster of what will happen at the World Cup?"

Both Poland and Germany will be at the finals and historically there is a lot of animosity between the two nations.

Hosts Germany have promised a safe World Cup finals, running from June 9 until July 9, and the hooligan turf war will concern the organising committee (OK).

The host nation has not had the easiest build-up to the finals with German away fans rioting during the friendly match at Slovenia in March this year and then in September's friendly in Slovakia.

- AFP