Aleksander Ceferin, president of European football’s governing body UEFA, has called on European football to fight ‘the cancer’ of hooliganism following the death of a Greek fan. “The problem is not just a Greek one, it’s a European one. We have to eliminate it,” the Slovenian said at a joint press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday. You shouldn’t call these people fans, they are “the cancer of football, they use it for their idiotic ideas”.
AEK Athens fan Michalis Katsouris was stabbed to death during violent clashes on the eve of Croatian champions Dinamo Zagreb’s Champions League qualifier at AEK in a suburb of Athens. UEFA then postponed the game to August 19.
Only official fan clubs?
Mitsotakis announced tightened measures for Greece. All organized fan clubs should be closed. In the future there will only be one official fan club, which will be connected to the club, he said. In addition, the powers of the police at the stadiums are to be expanded and controls tightened.
The meeting was also attended by bosses and representatives of the four major Greek clubs Panathinaikos Athens, Olympiacos Piraeus, AEK Athens and PAOK Thessaloniki. Mitsotakis appealed to the clubs to also take responsibility and fight against fan violence. Everyone must be mobilized, and that across Europe, it said in the joint statements.
“The guilty will be found and punished”
“We will do everything in our power to ensure that a tragedy like this never happens again,” Ceferin said. On Sunday, 105 people had been charged with involvement in the incidents and taken into custody. The accused include 102 Croats.
“The culprits for this murder will be found and punished,” said the Greek prime minister, who also called for a “European approach to combating violence in stadiums and effective punishment”. Mitsotakis also stressed that he had an agreement with the four chairmen of the main Greek clubs that “the police can operate in the stadiums and control access. But violence isn’t just in the stadiums, it’s also on the streets and we have to fight it together.”
Published/Updated: Recommendations: 8 Published/Updated: Recommendations: 4 A comment by Christoph Becker Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 4
The head of government also forbade interference on the part of other states. Croatian President Zoran Milanovic previously accused the Athens authorities of treating Croatian hooligans like prisoners of war. “Greece is a constitutional state, there are laws here, the judiciary is independent,” Mitsotakis clarified.
