Genk Fans Stampede: Utrecht Matches Under Review

The municipality of Utrecht will soon have further discussions with the police, the judiciary and FC Utrecht about the European home matches that have been played in recent months. Mayor Dijksma is also contacting the European football association UEFA and KRC Genk, after the disturbances in the Galgenwaard stadium last Thursday.

“Unfortunately, we have to conclude that the match FC Utrecht – KRC Genk (0-2) fits in a series of European home matches of FC Utrecht that did not proceed in an orderly and safe manner. Once again, large-scale police deployment in the city and at the stadium was necessary to restore order and to prevent worse,” Dijksma writes in a letter to the city council, according to reports. RTV Utrecht.

In it she explains what, according to the municipal council, happened around the match. Things went wrong when, after the arrival of the first eight buses with Belgian supporters, “a large group of violent Genk supporters immediately ignored the mandatory ID check by pushing fencing aside and knocking over stewards and security guards.”

According to the municipal council, that group of “about sixty to eighty people” forced an entrance gate and then destroyed several security cameras in the tunnel. During the stampede, three FC Utrecht security guards were injured and a Genk hooligan kicked a sniffer dog.

At that moment, there were about three hundred supporters from the first buses in the away section, including Genk hooligans who are known for the massive use of heavy fireworks at away games. It was then decided to search the supporters outside the stadium for safety reasons, but the hard core of Genk did not want that. They refused to leave the profession voluntarily.

According to the municipality, the riot police called on the supporters with a megaphone to leave the box, but this was not heeded either. In fact, the city council writes: “a large group of supporters present turned violently against the police. The police were, among other things, pelted with broken chairs and beaten with sticks and metal objects.” Fireworks were also thrown.

The supporters were driven to the parking deck next to the Galgenwaard stadium with a baton and pepper spray. But the violence did not stop there: “a group of hooligans continued to misbehave”. The police arrested three Genk supporters there.

In the meantime, the match had started, 50 minutes late, with an empty visitors’ section. All the while, the other sixteen buses with Genk supporters were still driving laps through the area.

It was the intention for a long time to allow those supporters into the stadium, but because quite a few seats had been demolished in the away section and the toilets and bar near the section had been partly destroyed, that ultimately did not happen. That would not be safe and that is why the buses driving around were sent back to Belgium.

It was already exceptional that the Genk supporters were obliged to come by bus. This happens more often in the national competition, but never in Europe. But the municipality had information that fireworks would be thrown en masse and that there was a high chance of “a possible physical confrontation between hooligans from Genk and FC Utrecht, in which hard cores from other clubs would also be involved”.

Dijksma says that it was necessary to use an exceptional means, “namely riot police deployment in a sector in the Galgenwaard”. She understands that this has been frightening for the well-intentioned part of the Genk supporters. “If any of them have been compromised or even injured, we deeply regret that,” the mayor said.

But according to her, the ball is in the court of the malicious parties themselves. “The violent group of hooligans who entered the stadium last Thursday not only ruined it for the KRC Genk supporters who were unable to attend the match, but also for all the other supporters in the stadium. After all, the match started much later than planned and football should be a party.”

Because things previously went wrong in European home matches in the matches against Porto and Lyon, there will be an evaluation with the triangle and FC Utrecht.