It was supposed to be a football festival and started as a big party on the Cote d’Azur, but then a dark shadow fell over 1. FC Köln’s comeback to the European Cup: the Bundesliga club’s Conference League game was canceled due to serious riots OGC Nice started 55 minutes late at 7:40 p.m. on Thursday. (It ended 1-1.)
After a security meeting, Uefa decided that the game scheduled for 6:45 p.m. should take place. In the event of another incident, the game will be stopped immediately. “I’m stunned,” said Cologne’s managing director Christian Keller on RTL. “Of our 8,000 fans, 7,900 behaved well, and from Nice there weren’t much more than a few dozen complete chaotic people, although chaotic people are too weak a word. I can only think of swear words that don’t belong here.”
A fan is said to have fallen from the stands and another was attacked with a knife. “I heard both of those,” said Keller. “I can’t say anything valid about how the two are doing. It shows that what happened here is perverse.” Keller described the process as follows: “My level of information is that hooligans from Nice invaded our fan block first. Then there are hooligans from our fan block, most of whom are said to come from Paris and were disguised as Cologne, and of course a few from Cologne afterwards,” said he. The people who did this must be found and dealt with without any compromises and with the utmost severity. “You must never, ever come back to the stadium, at least not to Cologne.”
Nice’s mayor is appalled, also by the “rude” behavior of the Cologne tour group
Cologne’s captain Jonas Hector and Nice’s captain Dante stepped in front of their fan blocks with microphones. “We wanted to celebrate a football festival with you. We still want to play, but of course we can’t approve of that,” said Hector: “We worked our ass off to qualify for the Conference League and we want this here also play. Please keep quiet, we want to celebrate football here and not have violence.”
Penetrating unhindered into opposing territory: “Of our 8,000 fans, 7,900 behaved well,” said Cologne’s managing director Christian Keller – the rest unfortunately not.
(Photo: Daniel Cole/AP)
At midday, thousands of FC fans paraded through the city and celebrated their club’s return to the European Cup with carnival hits and a big parade. Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi was upset with the legacy and behavior of FC supporters. “I regret the rude and scandalous behavior of the Cologne fans and the lack of respect for the city, which welcomes them generously and brotherly,” he tweeted with photos of garbage leftovers in the city. “We will send the invoices for damage and the cleaning of public places to the Cologne club,” he announced. Deputy Mayor Pierre-Paul Léonelli also tweeted pictures and wrote: “Who says the Germans are disciplined?” He pointed out that the law enforcement officers had immediately cleaned up the “shabby” dirt on Place Masséna.
