Call for tougher penalties and investigation after football violence in Brussels

Violent clashes between football supporters and Brussels residents during the Belgian Cup resulted in 63 arrests, 80 injured people and nine hospitalisations in the capital on Sunday.

Several police officers were also injured and shops in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean and Jette were vandalised, along with two metro stations.

The chaos started in the afternoon when about 800 Bruges supporters boarded the metro at Brussels Central, headed via line 5 for Beekkant station where they planned to transfer to line 6 to reach King Baudouin Stadium.

The Bruges supporters smashed metro windows and set off alarm bells, prompting an evacuation of the vehicle just two stops later.

While Stib mobilised a second vehicle to take them away, about 100 supporters left the station on foot in the Sainte-Catherine district.

The supporters who did not take the second train instead rioted in the streets of Molenbeek and Jette and ransacked local stores, assaulting residents in the process. Those who did take the second metro also vandalised that one.

After the football match against Anderlecht was finished, more incidents were reported at a dozen locations on the Stib network and violence continued past midnight.

Witnesses described the violence as extreme, saying that in one incident, football supporters used gas canisters to assault the father-son owners of a local shop, both of whom were hospitalised as a result of the attack.

Others were injured by fireworks used as weapons and received beatings from football fans.

The Brussels public prosecutor's office said the investigation into the violence was ongoing and that CCTV footage is being analysed.

“Today, images showed alleged supporters running riot in the streets of Brussels and around the stadium before the match,” Club Brugge said in a statement.

“Club Brugge explicitly condemns this behaviour and will cooperate with the police to identify those involved. Football must not be used as a cover for violence under any circumstances.”

The Pro League also issued a statement of condemnation.

“It’s clear that a number of hooligans used the Cup final as a pretext to commit acts of organised crime in Brussels,” the Pro League said.

“This led to a dynamic of mutual violence with inevitable innocent victims. We are cooperating with the police in the investigation into these incidents.”

While the Pro League highlighted recent progress in combating violence in football, including tougher penalties and the introduction of immediate stadium bans, it conceded that on Sunday, "all these efforts failed to prevent the criminal acts committed in the capital by groups eager for violence".

It added: "Groups that use football to commit acts of violence must simply disappear from football and we will do everything in our power to achieve this."

Brussels politicians weighed in on the violence, as well, with the Groen party calling for the Pro League to appear before the federal parliament.

“This has nothing to do with sport, it's pure terror,” said Groen MP Matti Vandemaele, describing the violence as racially motivated and coming from “far-right hooligans” – a sentiment echoed by others.

“What a horrible spectacle last night in Molenbeek, targeted by lawless Bruges supporters, some of whom were clearly racist,” said Les Engagés Brussels president Christophe De Beukelaer.

“The response must be radical. There can be no impunity for those who deliberately insult and injure others. Light must be shed on all the goings-on, beyond the emotional nature of the situation. How were these violent supporters able to find themselves unsupervised in the middle of the city?”

Brussels mayor Philippe Close (PS) called for the perpetrators of violence to be banned from stadiums for life, be barred from public transport and face legal proceedings.

“Those who came to ‘punish Brussels for its diversity’ must not be allowed to board trains or have access to tickets,” Close said, adding that cup matches can bring in double the number of spectators, posing enormous security challenges for the city.

“Cup matches have the peculiarity that in a stadium with 40,000 seats, there is no real home or away team,” said Victor Kanyanzira, a spokesperson for Close.

“That’s a completely different context from a regular league match between Bruges and Anderlecht, where there are at most a few hundred or 1,000 visiting supporters.”

While extra security measures were in place, especially in public transport, the vandalism that put the metro out of service resulted in football fans ending up in city streets – something police said normally would not happen.

The risk assessment was overly optimistic for similar reasons: with fans expected to come by public transport and enter the stadium through separate entrances based on who they support, the risk of violence was deemed low.

Interior minister Bernard Quintin (MR) called for the "most thorough" identification of those responsible for the violence "so that justice can do its job and punish those identified with the full force of the law".

But MP Vandemaele said Quintin and justice minister Annelies Verlinden (CD&V) have been ineffective in stopping football violence.

“When repeatedly asked about how to tackle misconduct in and around our stadiums, ministers Quintin and Verlinden tend to respond lukewarmly: the stricter football law is always the answer,” Vandemaele said.

“Yesterday, it became very clear once again that this stricter law does not provide a solution to the problems that exist. Additional action is needed.”

For its part, the Pro League emphasised that it already increased the chances of being caught for serious offences in football stadiums and doubled the penalties.

“This has resulted in more than 700 years of stadium bans over the past three seasons,” chief executive Lorin Parys said in a statement.

“Additionally, we’ve strengthened cooperation with the police and all authorities. The amendment of the Football Act, including stricter sanctions, is included in the coalition agreement.

"The interior minister has indicated that he wants to work on this quickly. We will continue to push for a higher chance of apprehension, better identification and stricter enforcement across all police zones."

Photo: Hatim Kaghat/Belga