Football violence: Swiss authorities propose personalised tickets
In the latest of a series of measures aimed at curbing violence in football, cantonal authorities now want to use named tickets to track problematic fans.
Such personalised tickets are an important additional instrument in the clamping down on individual offenders, the Conference of Cantonal Justice and Police Directors said on Friday.
A legal review by the group concluded that a non-voluntary introduction of personalised tickets for sporting events would require a revision of the Swiss “Concordat on Measures against Violence at Sporting Events”, otherwise known as the Hooligan Concordat, it said.
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A proposal for a corresponding legal revision will now to be drawn up. Karin Kayser-Frutschi, the co-president of the cantonal police directors, expects this to be available within the next year, she told the Keystone-SDA news agency.
In the meantime, clubs could also introduce such personalised tickets on a voluntary basis, if they chose to.
New model
In the fight against fan violence, the cantonal police directors will also rely on a so-called “cascade model” of measures, announced in March and to be introduced next season. This model consists of various levels, with certain violent incidents automatically triggering predefined measures.
For level 1 incidents, the model calls for a mandatory dialogue between clubs and fans and authorities. At level 2, entry to the stadium will be controlled by video surveillance to identify problematic individuals. At level 3, enforced in the event of violence leading to injuries or the use of weapons, the clubs must close a fan sector at the next home match.
If further violence involving injuries or the use of weapons then occurs during a probationary phase, the next home match would have to be played in an empty stadium.
League and clubs against
The Swiss Football League (SFL) and the clubs have unanimously rejected the model, saying it is ineffective, one-sided and disproportionate.
“There have never been so few cases of serious violent incidents around Super League matches as in the past season,” said SFL Managing Director Claudius Schäfer in March.
Furthermore, the model is a mixture of prevention and repression and does not focus on heading off future violence, they argue. The league and clubs also criticised the fact that individual elements of the model have already been applied on various occasions, even though the model had not yet been adopted or introduced.
Zurich fan sector closed
There have been several recent incidents of rioting at football matches. Last Saturday, several hundred FC Zurich fans attacked private security and police officers at the Stade de Genève, throwing metal rods, seats, firecrackers, pyrotechnics and gravel stones. As a result, the home sector at Letzigrund will remain closed for FC Zurich’s next home match against FC St Gallen.
There were also fights between Bern and St Gallen fans last Sunday. In mid-March, fans of FC Aarau and FC Baden clashed in Aarau.
Adapted from German by DeepL/dos
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