Nazis Attack Anti-Facist Club

“Alright mate, we’ll be fine today yeah? No repeats of last week right?” asked a friend of mine on the way to the football on Sunday morning.  “What are you talkin’ about? We never have trouble at our football ground” I replied. “Oh, I suppose you didn’t hear about what happened to the other Leipzig club…”

After listening to a couple of mates about what happened a week earlier to Roter Stern Leipzig, a 9th league club,  I was simply in shock. While on an away trip to Brandis, another Saxon city, this small club founded on anti-fascism and lefty ideals were attacked by 40-50 armed nazi men. The intruders, carrying pipes, 2×4′s and other blunt weapons charged the field during the 2nd minute of play and started attacking Roter Stern’s players, seriously injuring the goalkeeper including a good number of his fingers in the process. The assailants did not discriminate and stopped there as they threw stones and bottles at the Leipzig club’s managing staff before eventually taking their focus on the supporters. Fans (men, women and children) caught in the attack were trapped in a corner trying to fend off swings and missles being thrown at them. Additional police officers eventually made it to the scene but only after 30 minutes have passed, three seriously hurt and a handful more injured in the clash. The attacking neo-nazis gradually retreated away from the football ground after the damage has been done.

The alarming part of the whole incident was that Roter Stern officials has warned both FSV Brandis and the authorities of high chatter regarding a possible neo-nazi attack on their players and fans during this round of Berzerkliga play. Despite the warning and requests for additional security for the fixture, the authorities failed to provide the adequate security and only provided twelve officers for the match.

The match was called off as soon as the trouble started leaving the then 8-0-0 Roter Stern highly likely to collect all three points. FSV Brandis will certainly face high sanctions from the DFB which could range from fines to stadium bans or to point deductions.

This has been a growing problem in the lower leagues of German football. Right-wing elements have been taking advantage of the poor security at stadias to start trouble and attack clubs that are known to have a pro-left or a rights for all platform. Let’s just hope that the DFB and UEFA do something about this event. I call on them and local governments to do everything in their power to avoid such events in the future and make sure that penalties are heavily handed down, both in the sporting side and individual basis.

I for one, sometimes worry or wonder whether or not/when my football club here in Leipzig will be next in the hitlist of these cowards. I never had the thought of no longer attending football matches at RB Leipzig simply because, in principle, I believe that people can not give in to these type of elements. There are risks in everything we do in life, this is just another one of those issues that needs to be dealt with with an open voice. Isn’t it sad that events and barbarianism such as these still happen in a time when reason supposedly run the way of life? As we like to say here in WDKF, “There are always idiots in this game, and in this world”. Shame really…

Here is a translated statement from Roter Stern Leipzig’s website: http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.roter-stern-leipzig.de/news506.html&prev=hp&rurl=translate.google.com&usg=ALkJrhi9R4U8DxP_4HJTH10GNNdI5W08PA