12th May 2004

Courtroom clanger gives football thugs free hand to run amok at stadia

From Poland A.M.

In the light of last week's football match riot in Łódź that left two people dead, it seems the efforts of the police to reduce football hooliganism in this country are being hampered by bureaucratic bungling.

Last week, in addition to the fatalities in Łódź, 55 police officers were injured in Chorzów, while the match between Białystok and Legia Warszawa had to be abandoned when the players themselves were threatened by knife-wielding louts. At the Białystok debacle, police arrested 45 rampaging hooligans, with five subsequently sent down for three month and another 15 being fined and banned from future football matches. However, the effectiveness of this latter measure seems somewhat dubious given that while there are 456 hooligans who have been banned from attending football stadia, the police have no idea who they are as the courts have not yet given them any lists of names. (Gazeta Wyborcza, p. 1, 2) K.J.