Last minute U-turn? After charter flights and hotels have already been canceled, it could suddenly be that the Eintracht Frankfurt annex may be allowed to buy tickets for the second leg in the round of 16 of the Champions League next Wednesday in Naples. At least that’s what the administrative court of Campania, the region around Naples, thinks. It had been called by the Frankfurt lawyers. A “Regional Amministrativo Regional Court”, TAR for short, deals with decrees from the administrative authorities. In this case, it was ultimately about a decision from the Ministry of the Interior, which had caused a lot of trouble in Germany.
After a risk assessment by the Prefect of Naples, as the Italians call the governors of the Ministry of the Interior in the provinces, Rome came to the conclusion that it would be better if Eintracht fans did not travel to Naples – and therefore banned SSC Napoli , 2700 tickets to sell to away fans. 2400 of them should get a place in the away sector of the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.
The reason given by the prefect was the violent incidents in Frankfurt around the first leg and the possible consequences for the second leg. There is a great danger that there would be problems again – especially since there are indications that Ultras from Atalanta Bergamo, who are allied with those from Eintracht, would also travel to Naples. The match was classified as a “high-risk game” by the so-called “Committee for Safety Analysis before Sporting Events”, the CASMS. In Italy, the guest sectors are closed before such games.
The Eintracht club management found that Italy was taking an oath of disclosure: the state apparently did not see itself capable of ensuring security and therefore invited the guest fans. It was also said that this would distort sporting competition. As a reminder, the SGE had lost the first leg against the leaders of the Italian Serie A 0-2. The accusation was also circulating that Italy was violating a fundamental right with the ban. A banner in the south stand of Munich’s Allianz Arena caused a sensation during the Bayern match against Paris, criticizing Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi – in Italian.
According to the court, there are alternatives to “option zero”. Now the ball is back in the ministry
Now, however, the Campanian TAR considers the appeal of the Frankfurter to be permissible and has suspended the ban from the ministry: It is “disproportionate”, according to the decree. If the ministry cannot present any new and serious risk information, there are also alternatives to “option zero”, those that are less invasive than a total exclusion for guest fans in the stadium. According to the current state of knowledge, the security risk is no greater than before other games. However, the postponement by the court does not automatically mean that Napoli can now sell tickets to German fans: “The ball is back in the hands of the Interior Ministry,” writes the Gazzetta dello Sport. If it can prove its concern better, Frankfurt’s hopes are gone again.
In Italy itself, the ban initially triggered no reactions at all. The case only became a public issue when resentment became loud in Germany. Sports newspapers then made a “diplomatic case” out of it, the big Italian daily newspapers hardly reported about it at all. In Italy, it is common for fans to be unloaded if the committee considers the security risk to be too high. There are almost never any discussions, and the bans from going abroad are not interpreted politically either: they are the end of a police evaluation and are accepted as such.
You have to know that CASMS was founded because there had been a series of serious incidents and the state wanted to get the situation under control. In addition to representatives of the football association, the body that studies Italy’s fan milieu also includes civil protection officers, operators of motorway service stations, officials from the railway police, carabinieri, firefighters and an envoy from the Olympic Committee. They meet weekly and check the situation before the next game day.
Unfortunate, but ultimately proportionate – as the Italians see the situation
Sometimes the ministry also imposes long bans. For example, AS Roma fans have been banned from traveling to Naples for away games and vice versa for years, because they are always afraid of revenge operations after serious clashes in the past. On May 3, 2014, a young Napoli fan was shot in Rome: Ciro Esposito succumbed to his injuries two months later. It’s probably because of tragic precedents like this, and there have been plenty of stadium bans being accepted in Italy – as unfortunate but ultimately proportionate measures to protect everyone.
It is unusual that in this case fans from abroad would be affected. But from the point of view of the Italians, there are also precedents worth considering in the European context.
One of many is the visit of 10,000 Eintracht fans in Rome in December 2018. Frankfurt played against Lazio in the Europa League. In the Italian media, the events surrounding that encounter have since been covered under the catchphrase “devastazione”, meaning devastation. That may be a somewhat dramatic collective term for what happened. But the images of the bustling Piazza del Popolo, one of the most beautiful squares in Rome, stuck in the minds of the Romans. As an insult to the city. Feyenoord Rotterdam fans once made such a mess of the “Barcaccia”, Bernini’s baroque fountain in the Piazza di Spagna, that now the entire area around the Spanish Steps has to be cordoned off whenever a Roman club plays at home in a European competition. They are images like warning calls, they probably also act like triggers in the committee of risk assessors of the Ministry of the Interior.
