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• Matches resemble a military siege as riot police patrol grounds
• Concern grows at link between hooligans and organised crime
When Polish football fans rioted at a recent friendly international against Lithuania, it was a multi-faceted disaster for the authorities in Warsaw.
The clashes came as Poland is about to take up the EU presidency and is simultaneously preparing to co-host the 2012 European Championships with Ukraine. Never before has modern Poland been so starkly on show in Europe's shop window, with so much to lose if things go awry.
Organisers, police and government had been sticking to a mantra that the hooligan problem was under control and no longer a problem at football grounds. The clashes in Kaunas last month, in which about 200 Polish fans hurled bottles and stones at the police, demonstrated the war was far from over.
"What we saw at last Friday's match was not a very good picture to see that happening in a stadium," Uefa's director of Euro 2012, Martin Kallen, said. "We and the Polish government are concerned. They are taking this seriously and will have changes in the next month."
Within days, the Polish justice minister, Krzysztof Kwiatkowski, was announcing draconian new measures aimed at snuffing out the violence. Summary tribunals would be held inside stadiums, with judges empowered to impose sentences on the spot. Meanwhile, electronic tagging of convicted hooligans would be enforced more strictly. Lawyers say the regime is unconstitutional but the government is unperturbed. It is determined that nothing should spoil Euro 2012.
"You have to remember that the Polish police were not responsible for the security at that match," said Mikolaj Piotrowski, spokesman for Poland's Euro 2012 organisers. "It was organised by the Polish and Lithuanian federation and something went wrong in the preparations. But this shows there is a lot of work ahead. We can't sit in our armchairs and do nothing. On the other hand, we have to remember this is meant to be a festival, not a Nato operation."
Polish league games, however, resemble a military siege far more than a sporting carnival, with armoured cars and water cannon a frequent fixture. At a recent match in Krakow between a local side, Cracovia, and Korona Kielce, massed ranks of police in riot gear ringed the stadium, as rival fans were channelled in and out through steel-fenced cordons that allowed no contact.
As it did in England, the heavy security at such games has successfully diminished the level of violence inside stadiums, but it has driven at least some of it outside. These days, rival fans organise ustawki, pitched battles, in woods and fields away from the game, where they go at each other with fists, baseball bats and worse.
There has been a parallel, even more ominous development. Gangs of football fans have increasingly become involved in drug trafficking, prostitution and protection rackets.
"Ten years ago there was no connection with organised crime," said Piotr Chlebowicz, a criminologist at Warmisko-Mazurski University in Olsztyn. "But something has changed and now it is not easy to draw a line between where football hooliganism ends and organised crime begins. This is a serious threat. Most of these groups are dangerous. They are involved in drugs and there is constant fighting between them."
The raised stakes were brought brutally into focus on 17 January, in the Krakow neighbour of Kurdwanow, where a Cracovia gang leader was butchered in broad daylight by a rival mob armed with knives, axes and machetes.
The killing of Tomasz Czlowiek, 33, the manager of a kick-boxing club, was like a scene from The Godfather. His silver Audi was rammed from behind by a Jeep driving at full tilt and when he tried to run he was finished off by a swarm of 15 attackers who arrived at the spot simultaneously in stolen cars later found abandoned. With more than 50 puncture slashes and puncture wounds, Czlowiek's body was hardly recognisable. This was clearly not just another rumble between rival fans.
"Once it was young supporters who used to fight with their fists, but everything has changed in the last few years," said Jerzy Wozniakiewicz, a councillor and youth worker in the high-rise estates between historic Krakow and its ugly neighbour, Nowa Huta. "These are organised groups, often built around fighting schools, which are recruiting points for the 'foot-soldiers'.
"They are involved in drugs, anabolic steroids and car theft and the young men around here with no real ambitions are easy to hire as soldiers. They enter into a hierarchy, which gives them confidence and gradually they are assigned more important tasks."
With Euro 2012 approaching, police have been scrambling to keep up with this mutation of local rivalry into gang warfare. Last year Warsaw police set up the first unit focused on this growing nexus. But the tightly knit gangs have been hard to infiltrate, and a senior policeman said co-operation from the football clubs had been patchy.
"These hooligan groups have a huge influence on the management of clubs, and that is why the clubs don't enforce the laws," the officer said. "The gangs have access to money and that gets them into management."
The government's hope is that the sheer weight of police resources against the gangs in the run-up to Euro 2012 will ultimately break their back. The fear is that the gangs will simply sit out the championships and burrow deeper into the poor estates ringing Poland's cities.