Last season, the police counted 7,351 crimes around football games from the first to the third league. This is an increase of 12.2 percent compared to the 2022/2023 season, according to the new annual report from the Central Information Center for Sports Operations (ZIS). The number of injuries also increased. According to this, 1,338 people were injured around matches in the first three leagues last season (an increase of 13.8 percent), including 306 police officers and 160 law enforcement officers. The number has almost doubled, according to the ZIS report. The number of injured bystanders (617) was “marginally declining” at minus 1.3 percent.
According to the report, the criminal proceedings mostly involve “typical offenses” such as bodily harm, resistance to law enforcement officers, breach of the peace or damage to property. The misuse of pyrotechnics has also continued to increase in the first three leagues: “The police alone recorded 2,766 violations as administrative offenses and a further 721 violations as criminal offenses.”
With reference to the German Football Association (DFB), it is pointed out that last season “370 nationwide effective stadium bans were issued against supporters of clubs in the first three leagues”. In August 2024, “a total of almost 600 nationwide stadium bans were in force” – an increase of around 76 percent.
The ZIS is based at the State Office for Central Police Services in North Rhine-Westphalia. According to our own understanding, the annual report and its statistics are intended to provide an “objective basis for recognizing trends and developments in the area of football and violence”. The North Rhine-Westphalian Interior Minister, Herbert Reul (CDU), told the German Press Agency: “Riots and riots have nothing to do with fan culture. Pyrotechnics in stadiums also remains a criminal offense. At the European Championships in the summer we saw how peaceful football celebrations take place. The Bundesliga can do that too.”
