Quo Vadis Frankfurt?

SGE “Fans” actions in Karl­sruhe con­tinue to be hotly debated.

The fines have been handed out by the DFB, Ein­tra­cht Frank­furt was fined 40,000 Euros and Karl­sruher SC was fined 15,000 Euros respec­tively for not ade­quately pro­vid­ing secu­rity for the Offi­cials and the Play­ers. While both Clubs grudg­ingly accepted the ver­dicts and fines the only ones that seem to accept lit­tle respon­si­bil­ity are the “Fans” respon­si­ble for the inci­dent. A state­ment released by the Ultras Frank­furt after meet­ing with Klaus Lötzbeier from Ein­tra­cht Frank­furt seems to indi­cate that the group is blam­ing the inci­dent on not being able to per­form a pre­vi­ously requested Choreography.

Is this really what Sup­port­ers are about? In this case it seems to basi­cally come down to want­ing to get your way like a small child and if that does not hap­pen you are going to do what­ever you like and blame it on those not giv­ing in to your Child­ish behav­ior? Before you say to your­self “What does some­one in the US know about this kind of thing” let me say this: I have been involved in the Soc­cer Fan Scene since I was 8 Years old and have seen and expe­ri­enced quite a few things in that time both in Europe and more recently here in the US where the Fan Scene is slowly but steadily grow­ing. I have expe­ri­enced the age of old School Kut­ten­träger, had my share of Hooli­gan­ism and have a few scars to show for it and seen the Ultras Move­ment make its way on to the scene. I have always been fond of the Loy­alty, cre­ativ­ity and the bond that is found in the most ardent Sup­port­ers of a Club and still main­tain reg­u­lar con­tact with peo­ple that shared some of the most amaz­ing trips and expe­ri­ences so many years ago.

While the Sup­port­ers groups can be described as the heart and soul of the Club and many are will­ing to fol­low their Club to the ends of the earth to attend not only reg­u­lar sea­son and Inter­na­tional Games but also Train­ing Camps, Friend­lies, Indoor Tour­na­ments, Pub­lic Appear­ances etc. there has been a dis­turb­ing trend of some types of Fans to basi­cally attempt to black­mail “their” Club. Why is a good ques­tion, if the groups are doing what their mis­sion state­ment seems to indi­cate “Unwa­ver­ing Sup­port of your Team through thick and thin” how can inci­dents like this show sup­port of “Your” Club? Are inci­dents like this that result in fines, poten­tial loss of points, play­ing in an empty sta­dium help­ing your Club and the Play­ers achieve their goals or are they a way for your group to show­case itself and increase the groups stand­ing in the world of Sup­port­ers Groups? Many times the lat­ter unfor­tu­nately seems to be the major fac­tor that dri­ves the Groups to do things that seem to con­flict with what they say they are all about and then when the reper­cus­sions come they tend to com­pound the prob­lem by stat­ing that they will protest as they are being unfairly per­se­cuted. For an exam­ple of this see some of the excerpts trans­lated from the statement:

State­ment from the Frank­furt Ultras can be found here: http://www.uf97.de/

“This Thurs­day evening our group had a meet­ing with Klaus Lötzbeier (Board Mem­ber of the Ein­tra­cht Frank­furt Fuss­ball AG). We as a group thought it to be best to wait until after this meet­ing to offer a pub­lic state­ment instead of prior to the meet­ing. Now that we had the meet­ing here is our state­ment in regards to what hap­pened at the away match in Karl­sruhe and the sanc­tions that the Ein­tra­cht Frank­furt Fuss­ball AG has brought against the active Fan scene.

In Karl­sruhe we were once again not allowed to dis­play a pre­vi­ously made and offi­cially requested Chore­og­ra­phy. (Note: They have to be coor­di­nated with and allowed by the teams) For that rea­son we decided ahead of time to not reg­u­late our Fan Scene in regards to Pyrotech­nics as we have done with our vol­un­tary non use of Pyrotech­nics since the game against Ober­hausen in 2002. With minor small excep­tions there has been noth­ing spec­tac­u­lar with Pyrotech­nics in Frank­furt since 2002, even though we have always said that we gen­er­ally are not going to dis­tance our­selves from Pyrotechnics.

The Pyrotech­nic dis­play in Karl­sruhe to start the 2nd Half, with the excep­tion of the two flares at the end that landed on the field, was absolutely in order.

Since we have been told that we can­not bring any­thing to away matches we have decided to not bring any­thing to the home match against Schalke this week­end. We will not hang ban­ners, flags or par­tic­i­pate in any chants or songs. As long as our own Club, Ein­tra­cht Frank­furt, con­tin­ues to impose these penal­ties we will not be able to sup­port the Club in the way we always have.”

Ultras Frank­furt, 26.02.2009

Now I ask you, does this sound like a group that is acknowl­edg­ing it made an error and is accept­ing respon­si­bil­ity or a group that is blam­ing every­one else for this inci­dent and wants the Club to give in to its demands?