Get out of the niche (daily newspaper Junge Welt)

Fan projects have been protesting for years for a so-called right to refuse to testify, which would enable social workers employed by them to refuse to testify before government agencies, especially the police, public prosecutor’s offices and courts. An essential element for solid alliances in the curve, where the people involved can rely on each other: Because social work among active fans is just as necessary as it is everywhere in our society, because we live in conditions that isolate us, and because we mutually support each other have to teach again and again how we can solve conflicts democratically.

Now, in the course of the police spring offensive against football fans, the fan projects are also being targeted, as the case of Karlsruhe shows. Three employees of the local fan project have been summoned by the local public prosecutor’s office to testify about football fans they look after. The process reveals the problem of the relationship of trust with the social workers, according to criticism from the Stuttgart fan scene, for example. This now demands: Ultras out of fan projects!

You have to ask yourself: is this actually a necessary step towards self-protection? The capitalist elbow-jerk society does not stop at the stadiums and also shapes the fan scenes. »Free and wild«, that was once upon a time, one might think. More than two decades of repression by the state and associations have left their mark. For understandable reasons, the subculture is closing itself off more and more, giving up its field – the stadium – bit by bit. Candidates for ultra groups often have to be active for many years and earn their way into the groups. A practice that has already been criticized in fanzines as an »ultra university«. External pressure promotes exclusion, the firewalls are raised.

There are good reasons for it. Ultras always wanted to be able to do their own thing, never to merge with mainstream society. This autonomy creates small niches in football in which a better tomorrow appears. But the problems of many fan scenes force discussions about one’s own strategy: dogmatically defending one’s own culture or looking for an alliance so as not to have to fight alone?

Established ultra groups have mostly built up a support network and have their own people for legal issues and structures for young people. This is essentially how a democratic society should work. People take care of each other and do not wait for help from above. You see each other, listen to each other and exchange ideas, offer help. The fact that the majority of German Ultras see themselves as non-political and are nevertheless so fiercely opposed makes the contradiction between this subculture and a state and a football business that they do not want to accept clear.

But withdrawing into one’s own niche and fighting primarily ideological battles is the wrong way. It’s a defensive stance, limited to protesting the next outrages of commercialized football. But if you already have your back against the wall, you can’t achieve much. It is therefore essential to go in search of allies. Because you can achieve more together than alone. And Ultras are stronger when they have other fans behind them and never lose sight of the fact that they have more in common than what divides them. This is also the view of Cavese 1919’s »Curva Sud«, which in a current interview in the Ultrasfanszine Football experience declare: »We are part of the world, not its rulers. (…) It’s about a code of honor that lets us be human first and only then ultras.«

The debate about the only true way to deal with the fan projects is a sham debate, because the really important questions are left out. The social workers in the fan projects have been demanding the right to refuse to give evidence for years. In a joint statement, after their colleagues in Karlsruhe were summoned, they made it clear that they would not tolerate police intervention. Is staying away, ignoring or even spitting on the right way to deal with people who obviously want to help?

Ultras want to live »football, friends, freedom«. But the state and society do not allow that. If the past decades and the renewed wave of violence on the part of the police and associations have taught us anything, it is that a dogmatic attitude is useless. Strategies are needed to not only hibernate as Ultras, but also to be able to change things. Knocking away the outstretched hands of potential allies will not help in the fight for better football.