From an initial sentence of four months in prison to a fine. The Provincial Court of Madrid has lowered the sentence of the eleven ultras who attacked Real Madrid fans in 2017 hours before a European derby was held. It was May 10, 2017 and soccer Spain was rubbing its hands. The two teams from the capital: Atlético de Madrid and Real Madrid, were preparing to face each other in the long-awaited Vicente Calderón at the second leg of the semi-final Champions League.
It was seven in the evening and the Atlético fans, who were convinced that their team could come back from 3-0 in the first leg, were already congregating in the bars near the stadium. But a few minutes later, at about 7:15 p.m., the ultras They detected the presence of a delegation of Real Madrid supporters who, escorted by agents from the Police Intervention Unit (UIP), They had traveled by bus from the white sports city to the old Mahou factory, located very close to the soccer field.
And that was the moment when some of the Atlético de Madrid fans, including eleven convicted of public disorder, they began to throw objects at rival fans and at the police forces charged with protecting them. The simple passage of these supporters with shirts and scarves of the rival team served for some of those present to consider that it had been a “provocation”.
16 arrested
Bottles, cans, and any other object that the ultras had at hand were thrown at the Madridistas, who with great difficulty and thanks to the help of the Police were able to take refuge in a garage. This aggression forced the agents to intervene and charge to restore order. 25 people, including five agents, had to be treated by the Samur-Civil Protection in the vicinity of the Calderón.
Using the recordings of the stadium’s security cameras, agents of the Madrid Provincial Information Brigade arrested 16 men a day later, three of them minors, accused of the crimes of public disorder and attack against the authority. After going to court, the head of the Court of Instruction number 4 of Madrid charged eleven of the 16 arrested, two with criminal records, for the disturbances prior to the derby between Atlético and Real Madrid.
Those eleven defendants in 2017 they ended up being sentenced on November 17, 2021 by the Criminal Court number 13 of Madrid to four months in prison for public disorder. However, on July 21, Section 29 of the Madrid Provincial Court lowered the sentence for, among other things, undue delay. The sentence is lowered one degree because from the time the acts were committed until the trial was held, four years elapsed, being a cause that was not complex. Therefore, the sentence is one month and 15 days in jail, although in application of article 71.2 of the Penal Code, it becomes a fine of three months at the rate of a daily fee of 6 euros.
“Suppressing Freedom”
The ruling highlights that those convicted, “all of them followers of Atlético de Madrid, exerted violence on people, suppressing the freedom of exercise of other rights by third parties”. However, they consider that this “they did not do it through a severe disturbance of the public peace, but only by disturbing the order in the vicinity of the football stadium as a result of the match that was going to be held between his team and Real Madrid, causing concern from third parties, with objects being thrown towards the fans of the rival team and the agents of the authority”.
This way of acting by the ultras caused “a disturbance of the general tranquility of those attending the event and of those who came to guarantee security, which constitutes a mere incidental disturbance of public order, of a serious nature, but which does not imply a social atmosphere of fear and restlessness that generally affects an undifferentiated number of citizens and endangers coexistence and its normal development,” the sentence concludes.
racism in football
This sentence is known just a few weeks after the radicals of Atlético de Madrid staged a new case of violence in a Madrid derby. In this case, the victim was Vinicius. The Brazilian striker was subjected to racist contempt (“you are a monkey”) in the vicinity of the Metropolitano, before the start of the game held on September 18.
The Madrid Prosecutor’s Office opened proceedings for these events, after they were denounced by LaLiga, among other organizations, in the Anti-Violence Commission of the Higher Sports Council. The case is under investigation.
Atlético took two days to publicly condemn the events and promised to withdraw the membership card if any of the offenders held that condition. Three of them were later suspended as rojiblancos partners.
At present, this type of violent attitudes, especially those of a racist nature, occur mainly outside the stadiums, since the cameras inside the venues allow the offenders to be more easily identified. The ultras know it and even make warnings from the stands, through megaphonesand that is why they concentrate their violent activity before and after the matches.
