The debate about safety in soccer stadiums continues. The DFB has announced an interim decision.

Stadium bans will continue to be imposed by local commissions. In addition, the German Football Association (DFB) has announced the creation of an additional central supervisory body. “The new authority will serve as a higher supervisory body to ensure a uniform, consistent, effective, efficient, and fair stadium ban procedure,” the DFB announced. There have been repeated discussions and protests from soccer fans on this issue recently.

At a summit meeting on the topic of “violence in soccer stadiums” about a year ago, the state sports ministers decided to introduce a nationwide central stadium ban commission in German professional soccer. As a result, representatives from politics, the police, the DFB, the German Football League (DFL), and the Coordination Center for Fan Projects have been discussing the issue of stadium safety in a working group over the past few months and are continuing to do so.

Call for the abolition of ticket quotas for visiting fans According to the DFB, the working group called for, among other things, a reduction or abolition of ticket quotas for visiting fans and the obligation to personalize tickets. Another topic of discussion was that the authorities would no longer approve the clubs’ security concepts. This would mean that matches could not take place.

“From a soccer perspective, such unilateral interventions by the authorities should be avoided at all costs because they do not target the perpetrators and are unsuitable for achieving the desired goal,” writes the DFB. The association describes the stadium experience in Germany as “safe.” It bases this assessment on statistics from the police’s Central Information Office for Sports Operations (ZIS) and on surveys.

DFB: “Different points of view” in the discussions

“The aim of the DFB and the DFL in all discussions was and is to agree on appropriate and effective measures in the interests of soccer that will further improve security at soccer matches and at the same time reduce the number of hours spent by the police on duty,” says the DFB. “At the same time, however, it was important to counter inappropriate, unnecessary, and/or unreasonable demands with clarification and factual arguments. Different points of view became very clear during the discussions.”

Among other things, the DFB wants to improve prevention. To this end, the number of fan representatives is to be increased and the security officers and event managers of the clubs are to be strengthened.