Before the 2: 2 of VfL Wolfsburg against Bundesliga returnees Werder Bremen, there was a police operation at the station. Numerous supporters of the SVW are presumably searched for no reason. Clubs and fans react angrily, Lower Saxony’s Interior Minister Pistorius promises clarification.
Lower Saxony’s Interior Minister Boris Pistorius has announced that the Wolfsburg police’s actions against Bremen fans will be dealt with consistently. “It is emerging, and we will examine it carefully and draw conclusions accordingly, that it may not have been necessary to do everything that way and, above all, it should have been communicated better than it happened,” he said in Hanover.
Werder Ultras did not come to the game in Wolfsburg (2-2) on Saturday as a protest. On Saturday, the fans felt the searches and personal identification of the officials at the Wolfsburg main station were disproportionate.
“That has to be worked through, and we will do it carefully because I have a great interest in ensuring safety in the stadiums,” promised Pistorius. A report is currently being evaluated by the state police headquarters.
The Minister of the Interior defended the basic assessment of the police and referred to the use of pyrotechnics by Bremen fans in the DFB Cup a week earlier. “And may I remind you that in the Cottbus-Bremen game there were extreme pyrotechnic excesses and that the police had reason to believe that this could happen again in Wolfsburg.”
The Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior had previously contradicted the statements made by the two Bundesliga clubs and stated that the game had already been viewed as a risky game in the past. “In the 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 seasons, the encounters between these two teams in Wolfsburg were already classified by the police as a so-called “red game”,” the ministry said on Wednesday. According to Werder President Hubertus Hess-Grunewald, both clubs had “assessed the security situation in advance and rated this game as green”.
Videos on social media had shown fans surrounded by several police officers in front of emergency vehicles and the officials’ announcement that the supporters were not allowed to stay in the city area and were only allowed to go to the stadium. The Wolfsburg police announced on Sunday that Bremen fans should have been allowed to stay in the city area. The action was intended to prevent “clashes between fan groups,” the authority wrote on Twitter.
Those responsible for both clubs criticized the actions of the police and could not understand the risk assessment. Bremen’s professional football manager Clemens Fritz said: “If you take the last few years, it was always quiet. I don’t understand that.” VfL managing director Jörg Schmadtke called the police operation “an embarrassment for the football location of Wolfsburg”.
The Wolfsburg professional Max Kruse also expressed sharp criticism. “What the police did to the Werder fans is an absolute absurdity,” he said on Instagram. “Where do we live?” asked the 34-year-old. “I think it’s completely okay that they resisted,” he said in the direction of the Werder Ultras, who had not shown up for the game between Wolfsburg and Bremen last Saturday in protest. “We live in a free world and just because I’m going somewhere, I don’t have to show my ID and say who I am,” Kruse added.
