Coronavirus DK: Real soccer fans stick together

Just because the coronavirus has been brought under control in Denmark, that doesn’t mean that Danes are supernaturally conscientious and disciplined about maintaining social distancing and following other healthcare recommendations. When given a chance, they can also go amuck (DK). That’s what happened during the Danish Cup Final, the culmination of the soccer season. When the Premier League resumed play on May 28, only 500 fans were allowed to attend matches and they had to abide by social distancing provisions. Since the first matches went well, the limit was raised. The Minister of Justice decided that up to 750 tickets could be allotted for each team’s fans at a match between Aalborg (AaB) and SonderjyskE in Esbjerg last week.

Showing their team some enthusiasm

About a half hour after the match began, Aalborg fans left their assigned seats and crowded together (DK). They sang, waved flags and launched flares as they used to do in the good old days. After they ignored several announcements over the loudspeakers directing them back to their seats, the referee stopped play. Stadium security guards tried to escort them back to their proper places. AaB’s assistant coaches ran over and tried to persuade them to cooperate. But 44 fans were unruly and were ejected from the stadium and arrested. They were put on a bus and driven home to Aalborg, accompanied by the police.

Aalborg fans in Esbjerg. Photo: Claus Fisker/Ritzau Scanpix

Can soccer fans behave?

The incident was disappointing for officials who had worked to get spectators back in the stands. The number of tickets allotted depends on the size of the stadium, and up to 10,000 would be allowed into Parken, the largest stadium, in Copenhagen. They must now evaluate the policy.

“It was chaotic. That’s the most appropriate word I can think of,” says Christian Rothman, the chair of the Danish Soccer Fans association. “We must be honest so that we can try to understand how it escalated like that.” Rothman, a diehard AaB fan himself, attended the match and watched events unfold. A set of fans belonging to an unoffical group called “Auxilia” decided that if they couldn’t watch the match on their own terms, they wouldn’t stay, and that is when the police intervened.

Competing stories

The next day, Auxilia had its own interpretation (DK) of the incident: When its members left the stadium peacefully in order to allow the match to resume, they were met by a very aggressive police force that used violent measures against them. A video that went viral shows a cop hitting one fan with a baton after he was already lying on the ground.

The explanation from the Southern Jutland police (DK) was of course somewhat different. It describes the unruly fans trying to break doors and windows on their way out of the stadium. The police pacified them and set them on the ground in a long row. It seemed a little strange to a virologist, Søren Riis Paludan of Aarhus University, that they should be ejected from the stadium for standing too close together and then placed so close together again by the police afterward. But if they were all facing in the same direction, it wasn’t so bad, he said.

The fans asked to sit like that themselves, said the police. “They said it was a strain to sit without leaning up against each other. Since the same fans had sat on the bus from Aalborg together, stood together, walked together and had been at a bar together, they were allowed to stay where they were sitting.”

The match was stopped for 15 minutes with the score 0-0. When it resumed, SonderjyskE scored and went on to post its first win in the Final, 2-0. The spectator attendance experiment ended 1-0 to Alcohol over Social Distancing.