Napoli-Eintracht: guerrilla warfare in the center among fans, fear among the people – Campania

Still moments of strong tension in Naples: a group of ultras attempted to approach the hotel where the Eintracht Frankfurt fans are staying just as they were about to start transferring the German supporters onto the buses to take them away from the city. A group of Neapolitan fans, according to what has been learned, detonated paper bombs and threw stones in the area between via Partenope and via Chiatamone. The police used tear gas and water cannons and repulsed the assault.

In Naples a day of violence and ultra madness. Streets of the historic center transformed into a battlefield, shops damaged, a police car set on fire, new public transport buses with smashed windows. A real guerilla unleashed by the supporters of Naples and Eintracht. For the city a day to forget. And then a flood of controversies, with Minister Piantedosi and the management of security in the crosshairs. Many ask the head of the Interior Ministry to explain what went wrong, the League wants the German government to pay the damages, while the mayor Gaetano Manfredi speaks of “unacceptable scenes of devastation”.

“We strongly condemn the unspeakable acts of those who have been the protagonists of this violence, from wherever it has come,” he said Manfredi also making it known that he had met the German ambassador at the Town Hall “to jointly condemn the acts of violence and reaffirm the strong bond between Naples and Germany”.

From Berlin came the condemnation of the violence by the interior minister, Nancy Faeserfor which “violent people and hooligans destroy sport”. Harsh words also from the popular newspaper Bild Zeitungwhich title “Champions League shame in Naples”, accusing Eintracht fans of having “vandalized” the city “together with the Atalanta hooligans”. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung also speaks of possible links between the Frankfurt and Bergamo fans.

Despite the ban on the sale of tickets to German residents in Frankfurt, hundreds of fans from Germany still arrived in Naples – about 600 the estimate – coming by train from Salerno and at the airport in Capodichino. The first acts of violence took place in the night between Tuesday and Wednesday in Piazza Bellini, where a group of fans threw glass bottles at a closed bar. Also during the night, along the route between the station and the seafront, where one of the hotels that hosted them is located, one of the German supporters’ buses was firecrackers thrown. Throughout the day, a thousand men from the forces of order worked to avoid the manhunt by the Neapolitans. The situation calmed down only in the early afternoon when, thanks to the rain, the groups of foreigners dispersed and then gathered in Piazza del Gesu. However, it was right here, suddenly, that the guerrillas broke out. About 200 Neapolitan fans, almost all with their faces covered and wearing helmets, came down from via San Sebastiano and some adjacent alleys, collecting stones and bottles along the way. Violence broke out in front of the church of Gesù Nuovo, whose facade is freshly restored, and of the Basilica of Santa Chiara. The police formed a cordon between the two groups but firecrackers and stones were thrown and the ultras used dumpsters and bar chairs to face each other. A violence consumed between citizens and tourists in tears who sought shelter. Minutes of pure terror. The police repulsed the assault, throwing tear gas and keeping the Germans pinned down. But along Calata Trinità Maggiore, the road that leads from piazza del Gesù to via Monteoliveto, tension has returned: a police car is set on fire and other police vehicles have been damaged. A pistol was also found on the pavement: it belonged to an officer, which fell to the ground during the clashes and was then recovered by a colleague of his. The police, after finally removing the Neapolitans, forced the Germans to get on five buses. When the transshipment started there was the second round. This time some groups acted with their faces uncovered. They threw stones and bottles at the vehicles, smashing the windows. Episodes that will be reviewed in a urgent meeting of the Committee for public order and safety, convened by the prefect Claudio Palomba, and which lead police sources to underline how “the ban on the sale of tickets” to Eintracht fans was “justified”. The Italian security apparatuses had “full knowledge of the danger” of the German ultras and of the risk of clashes with the local ones, so much so that they renewed the provision after the decision to suspend the TAR despite some claiming it was a “discriminatory act” by Italy .

Ma the management of the square ends up under accusation. The leader of Azione Calenda attacks the head of the Interior Ministry. On the same wavelength, the secretary of Più Europa, Riccardo Magi, “Piantedosi is inadequate”, while the Democratic Party, with Piero De Luca and Marco Sarracino, invites the minister to say what went wrong.