Half an hour of warfare in the historic center of Napoli. After a day of voltagewaiting and attempts to avoid contact between the home fans and the approx 500 ultras dell’Concord Francoforte arrived in the city despite the ban on witnessing the return of the eighths Of ChampionsThe clashes started around 4.30pm. Launches of firecrackerssmoke bombs, uprooted bar tables and chairs, bottles e stones. With the police in riot gear in the middle of trying to avoid the contact between the two fans. Everything that was feared has happened. And in the fights they have also been arson a steering wheel police cars and other cars. Theater of clashes and repetitions assaults they have been Jesus square and the neighboring streets. With officers forced to back into alleyways and use i tear gas to try to disperse the violent.
The clashes began when the German fans, who on Wednesday morning had been allowed to march through the center square from the seafrontthey had to get on the buses that would have them brought back to the hotel where they stay. By that time, several dozen appeared troublemakers with the covered face who engaged in a fight while the police, in riot gear, were busy dividing the factions and to disperse the ultras. To support the German fans, according to what has been leaked in the last few hours, some ultras from theAtalanta with which I am twinned. Around 17.30 the ultras of Eintracht were then loaded on bus and escorted to the hotel in via Caracciolo where they have rented the rooms and where in all probability they will come identified. During the journey, some fringes of Neapolitans tried something new assault attempt throwing stones and other objects at vehicles.
The presence of the police was immediately massive in order to prevent possible clashes with violent fringe of Neapolitan typhus, victim of several ambushes in Frankfurt on the first leg. Precisely because of the violence in the first leg match prefecture had ordered the ban on the sale of coupons for all German citizens, but the Tar Campania had annulled the measure retaining it lack of motivation and too generic. The prefecture had therefore activated again with an ordinance that concerns the suns residents in Frankfurt and the appeal to the administrative judges proposed by the German club has been cancelled. The ultras of the Eintracht curve have nevertheless decided to leave for Naples, despite the fact that they cannot attend the match scheduled at the Maradona stadium. And right there location where they can see the return of the round of 16 of the Champions League remains an unknown factor a few hours after the kick-off. In fact, the hotel where they are staying has made it known that it does not broadcast the match.
“The scenes of devastation of the historical center of the city are unacceptable. We strongly condemn the unspeakable acts of those who have become protagonists of this violencewherever it came from. Naples and the Neapolitans don’t deserve to suffer i serious material damagemoral and image that this madness has brought about,” said the mayor of Naples Gaetano Manfredi who also met the German ambassador in Italy Viktor Elbling.
The tension had already risen last night: during the transport on the bus towards the hotel, a group of Neapolitans launched roots and stones against the torpedo of the Germans, while a dozen Germans staged a raid against a bar of Piazza Bellini, closed at that time. Police intervention had prevented contact between fans on several occasions. On Tuesday evening some agents noticed in Piazza Dante the presence of about 100 Neapolitan fans attributable to associations of the B curve of the Maradona stadium that have split into small groupsone of which, to escape control of the steering wheel, walked away and abandoned 5 flagpoles plastic, two smoke bombs it’s a rocket.
In the following hours, about 150 fans attributable to groups of the Curve Amany of which a covered face and armed with week of flags, after always meeting in Piazza Dante, they moved and, monitored by the Digos, they traveled through various city streets until they stopped in the immediate vicinity of the hotel that houses the German fans, who they were unable to reach thanks to the public order device present there. Also in the area of the hotel, during the night, other groups of Neapolitan supporters armed with stonesbottles and flag poles.