State withdrawal

With the 2014/2015 Bundesliga season just a few weeks away, things are starting to get a bit heated on the issue of ground security.

In the northern city of Bremen, authorities have announced that the company responsible for the league, the DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga GmbH, will have to start paying for police that are employed at league matches.

In response, the German Football Association (DFB) moved the planned national team game against Gibraltar in November away from the Weser stadium. The German Police Union has since become involved in the discussion and demanded 50 million euros in payment from Germany's Bundesliga clubs.

Now, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) has announced that local police will be reducing their presence - or in some cases not showing up at all - at Bundesliga matches in the region for a period at the start of the coming season. The state is one of the heartland areas of the Bundesliga: it's home to six Bundesliga teams - Dortmund, Schalke, Cologne, Leverkusen, Borussia Mönchengladbach und Paderborn.

According to plans announced by the state's Interior Minister Ralf Jäger on Monday (04.08.2014), police will be both "positioned in a hidden place as well as rarely used to accompany blocks of fans." Riot police will also not be in a visible position in the stadium, he says.

Appeal to the fans

Interior Minister Jäger is reacting to the huge police costs that are currently incurred while securing Germany's top flight soccer games. Over 300,000 man-hours were clocked up last year by police at Bundesliga matches. A third of these hours were in areas around the stadiums.

Now the fans and clubs are being asked to take responsibility themselves. In a confidential paper obtained by German newspaper BILD, the NRW authorities are asking clubs to look after security, with either volunteers or club personnel accompanying fans on their way to the stadium.

"Discussions with the fans have shown me that fans are willing to take on more responsibility," Jäger said. "They can now prove it."

"It's our goal to create a peaceful football-viewing experience," Jäger said. "After we have finished the pilot project, we will see whether this has worked."

The state of NRW is planning an initial phase of reduced policing over the first four rounds of the season. Jäger insists that police presence will not be reduced at the often rowdy local derby matches. And he says anyone engaging in criminal activity can expect just the same amount of police attention as always.

"We are just talking about the games that have been peaceful in the last three years," he said. "In this instance we want to reduce the number of riot police to suit the situation."

Risk of violence?

But can it really work? The chairman of the NRW police union, Arnold Plickert, doesn't think so. "Instead of isolating and prosecuting violent football fans, we are making ourselves scarce and letting them take over the streets," Plickert told the German newspaper BILD.

Harald Lange, a professor at the Germany-based Institute of Fan Culture, says the debate is just unnecessary saber-rattling from both sides. The question of reducing costs is important, but in Germany the state is responsible for public peace, which means the police have to do the work, he says.

Financial support from a (private) third party would not be something that Germany would want, Lange told DW, as that would mean that such support would have to apply in other instances, too.

"When Obama comes for a state visit, does the CIA or the American taxpayer have to pay for his security?" Lange asks. "And what about events held by political parties, or fairs? Or when nuclear waste is being transported? Should the demonstrators or the power plant owners pay for that?" Lange is appealing to all sides to be sensitive to the needs of others and communicate openly in the current debate.

Europe's other big leagues

The reduction in policing at Bundesliga matches is not happening in all German cities, though. Berlin, for instance, has confirmed that it won't be engaging in any such pilot projects for the moment.

In other leagues in Europe, clubs have been asked to foot the bill for police involvement for years. French clubs, for instance, pay for a portion of police costs on game day. In the Spanish Primera Division and the English Premier League ,the state pays for police costs only outside of the stadium.

In Spain, clubs mainly use private security companies inside the stadiums to control fans. In England, the clubs are completely responsible for security inside their own grounds.