“Stunned”
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Riots overshadow Cologne draw in Nice
Fans run over a grandstand with pyrotechnics. Photo: dpa
updates Nice At noon before the European Cup game at OGC Nice, fans of 1. FC Köln are still celebrating peacefully in the center of the southern French city. In the evening, supporters of both clubs cause serious riots. The game still stands. The 1:1 is almost irrelevant.
It started as a big party on the Cote d’Azur, then a dark shadow followed due to terrible riots in the stadium and in the end 1. FC Köln missed the deserved victory at the start of the Conference League with an unlucky penalty. 1. FC Köln’s first group game in the European Cup in almost five years turned into an emotional rollercoaster ride. In the end, the team of coach Steffen Baumgart, who was locked in the stands, had to settle for a 1-1 (1-0) draw at OGC Nice, despite a strong performance for a long time.
But the impressions of the serious riots before the first conference league group game weighed more heavily than the frustration at the missed victory. In the meantime, the staging was on the brink, in the end it was kicked off 55 minutes late at 7.40 p.m. In the event of another incident, the game will be canceled immediately, UEFA said. But this one didn’t happen. According to the Nice Police Prefecture, 18 people were injured.
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Steffen Tigges, who came from Dortmund in the summer, put Cologne in the lead at the break with his first competitive goal (19th) against the team of long-time Bundesliga coach Lucien Favre. Nice equalized with a hand penalty from Andy Delort (62′). Timo Hübers got the ball against his arm from a free kick in the wall.
But the game will have an emotional and financial aftermath for FC because of the riots. “I’m stunned,” said Cologne’s managing director Christian Keller before the game on RTL. “Of our 8,000 fans, 7,900 behaved well, and from Nice it was not much more than a few dozen total chaos. Although chaotic is too weak a word. I can only think of swear words that don’t belong here.”
Amateur videos from fans showed a supporter falling from the middle tier while dodging a firecracker. According to the police prefecture, it was a supporter from Paris, with whom FC Ultras maintain a fan friendship. Another is said to have been attacked with a knife. “It shows that what happened here is perverse,” Keller said.
He described the process as follows: “The information I have is that hooligans from Nice were the first to break into our fan block. Then there are hooligans from our fan block, most of whom are said to be from Paris and dressed up as people from Cologne, and of course a few from Cologne follow. “You must never, ever come back to the stadium, at least not to Cologne.” Many FC fans sang during the riots: “We are from Cologne and you are not.”
Cologne’s captain Jonas Hector and Nice’s captain Dante stepped in front of their fan blocks with microphones. “We wanted to celebrate a football festival with you. We still want to play, but of course we can’t approve of that,” said Hector: “We worked our ass off to qualify for the Conference League and we want to play this too. Please keep quiet, we want to celebrate football here and not have violence.”
At midday, thousands of FC fans paraded through the city and celebrated their club’s return to the European Cup with carnival hits and a big parade. Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi was upset with the legacy and behavior of FC supporters. “I regret the rude and scandalous behavior of the Cologne fans and the lack of respect for the city, which welcomes them generously and brotherly,” he tweeted with photos of garbage leftovers in the city. “We will send the invoices for damage and the cleaning of public places to the Cologne association,” he announced.