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Hooligans target World Cup
23/01/2006 15:07 - (SA)
Berlin - Polish hooligans are aiming to cause mayhem at this summer's World Cup finals in Germany and achieve a notoriety equal to that of the traditional sources of violence such as England and The Netherlands, a report said on Monday.
Germany's Der Spiegel weekly said Polish fans from clubs around the country were banding together with the aim of wreaking havoc at the finals.
"The hooligans want to use the World Cup to show that they are just as dangerous as their English, Dutch or German counterparts. We must quite simply expect the worst," Jacek Purski from the Warsaw-based supporters' initiative Nigdy Wiecey (Never Again) told Der Spiegel.
Purski described the profile of typical Polish hooligans as "car thieves, doormen, petty thieves or dealers".
Drawn in the first-round Group A with host nation Germany, Costa Rica and Ecuador, Poland are tipped to finish second and qualify for what could be a second-round tie against England.
Given the poor reputation of English fans, that is a fixture which could set alarm bells ringing for the World Cup organisers.
Der Spiegel quoted a 21-year-old hooligan, which it named as Marek, who follows the Legia Warsaw club.
"Of course football is also about a good fight," he said.
Marek, who is unemployed, told Der Spiegel he was grateful to the Nazis "for freeing Poland from the grip of the lazy Jews".
Der Spiegel estimates that 300 000 Poles will travel over the border to Germany for the 62-match finals, which begin on June 9 and end on July 9.
A report in Der Spiegel in December described how Polish and German hooligans took part in an organised 100-man mass brawl in a forest near the Polish border in East Germany.
Police said one of the German hooligans arrested at the scene had already been sentenced for his part in riots at the 1998 World Cup finals in France.
- SAPA
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