Fiction, facts and a summer's fairy tale – mixed messages at the World Cup 2006

Abstract

The FIFA World Championships 2006 in Germany have been praised for their positive atmosphere and described as a ‘fairy tale’. Yet, more than 9000 persons were arrested. This paper presents an analysis of police tactics and deployments and their relation to the frequency of incidents and the group relations between fans and between fans and police. Data collection was carried out within three host cities in North Rhine-Westphalia in relation to 10 games of the tournament, drawing on a combination of structured and qualitative observational methods. The outcomes are mixed. Group relations were mostly positive, indicated by positive interaction between fan groups; however, frequency of incidents and arrests suggest that the tournament was not as peaceful as the media coverage may have implied. Deeper analyses suggest that legitimate group relations and positive fan behaviour were associated with differentiated policing, carried out in relation to the situational context and the actual risk present.

Keywords:

• public order management
• football
• crowd policing
• police–citizen interaction

Acknowledgements

We thank all the fans and visitors from all over the world who contributed to this work, to the members of the fans' embassies in Dortmund, Gelsenkirchen and Cologne, particularly Jelka Röper, Rolf Marewski, Thilo Danielsmeier, Wayne Colbert, Martin Curi, António Holzmeister, Kevin Miles and Michael Gabriel. Data collection was made possible through cooperation with Professor Thomas Feltes, Chair of Criminology at Ruhr-University Bochum, in particular by the students from the Master Course Criminology and Police Science: Andrea Wiesener, Andreas Weidenbörner, Birgit Winkelsett, Detlev Schürmann, Dominique Best, Frank Mitschker, Jens Broderius, Jürgen Kleene, Kathrin Böhling, Kathrin Krämer, Kavita Solunke, Dr Ludwig Hermeler, Manfred Schroeder, Michael Stiels-Glenn, Michaela Franke, Mirjam Wille, Norbert Hebborn, Oliver Bossert, Petra Schmittner, Reinhard Mokros, Sandra Giesemann, Sara Schmitz and Stephan Prinz. Teachers and students of the Netherlands Police Academy: Eric Bervoets, Lonneke de Bis, Marc Douma, Tanja van Dintheren, Theo Bakker, Femina Hoekstra, Frank Scheffer, Jeroen Wolff and Robin. Furthermore, by Chief-Superintendent Kenneth Scott from (then) Strathclyde Police in Glasgow and Chief-Superintendent Wim van Oorschot from the Netherlands Police Academy. Access to police officers and internal information was made possible by NRW police; in particular, we thank the local police force: Cologne Police, Dortmund Police and Gelsenkirchen Police, especially LDP Uwe Thieme, LPD Martin Mester, PD Frank Kaiser and LPD Michael Kuchenbecker. We are grateful for Professor Klaus Boehnke's comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Notes

1. In particular, observations were carried out on the day before the games between England and Sweden (Cologne) and England and Portugal (Gelsenkirchen) and after the match between Switzerland and Togo (Dortmund).

2. In particular, we spoke with officers of riot teams, bronze, silver and gold commanders, media officers, dog handler, spotters, members of special intervention units and officers from the Federal Police.

3. In total, German police detained about 9000 persons: 3200 for criminal offences and 5800 who were taken into preventive custody during the WC (Mathies 2006).

4. It should be noted, though, that our study also included observations around the biggest incident of the tournament, a confrontation between German fans and the police around the Germany versus Poland game. As we are reporting on this elsewhere (Schreiber and Adang 2010), this incident is not covered extensively in this paper.

5. A female police officer, gathering intelligence.

6. A famous game or ceremony among German fans, where they are basically making fun of themselves, usually indicating peaceful behaviour and intentions.

7. Stuttgart hosted the bronze game, whereas the final took place in Berlin.