FOOTBALL IN GERMANY is different. 

The Bundesliga terraces are, as described by Enda Coll in On The Right Wing, “heavy metal to others’ rock ‘n’ roll”. 

German football is raucous, colourful, political and principled; the 50+1 ownership model meaning that the clubs will always be majority owned by those in the stands. 

Yet there is a darker side to this most vibrant of supporter scenes. 

Hooliganism has been a problem in Germany going back to the 1980s, but in modern times it’s taken a turn in a different direction.

What were once sporadic, random acts of violence against opposing fans, have turned into organised displays of hostility and and hostility.  

The link between football fan groups in Germany and far-right extremists in the country is the focus of the second episode of this exclusive new series for The 42. 

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Author Robert Claus, who specialises in far-right extremism and football, looks at how the nature of hooliganism has evolved from the chaotic scenes of the 80s to the planned scenes of violence now, where groups of combatants, many trained in mixed martial arts, meet to do battle.    

“They have also developed their own athletic formats because when they left the stadia in the nineties in a little bit, they established something which we call either . . . ‘third place combat’, or ‘acre matches’,” Claus says. 

“Both terms refer to the fact that hooligan groups are meeting in some industrial parking lot to have a group fight. So 10 against 10 or 20 against 20 the one team wears red shirts, the other one yellow, they run into each other and see who’s the better team . . .”  

The podcast also explores the conflict between fan groups with racist ideologies and some groups of left-wing ultras formed as a response to them. It details how fighting shifted from hooligan groups from rival clubs, to fans of the same club, in the same cities as the battle for the soul of German football continues. 

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