Football fans are reducing the cascade model to absurdity

It’s as if the authorities never had the host sector in the stadium closed due to fan violence. FC Luzern equalized the football match at FC St. Gallen in injury time on Easter Monday to make it 1-1 and stayed in the race for the top six places.

Then the ritual of happiness follows, the team, coach Mario Frick and staff members line up in front of the Lucerne fans and celebrate what there is to celebrate. Everything takes its usual course. The player Pius Dorn said minutes later that the team had been “pushed” by the appendix, which was “good as always”. Max Meyer says: “The fans are always away, I didn’t think about it.”

Normality after a hard-fought Super League game? The scene suggests everyday life, even though the host sector had previously been closed by the authorities. Actually. The measure dates back to May 2023 and riots in the city of Lucerne between the two fan groups and is part of the cascade model that the league, the clubs and the fans now reject.

The police agree to a deal

In St. Gallen the cascade model is reduced to absurdity. It quickly becomes clear that the police are allowing a deal and smuggling the Lucerne fans who have arrived by car and public transport into the host sector shortly before the match. In this way, proportionality was maintained and security in the stadium was best guaranteed, people in the know in the stadium said afterwards. The St. Gallen city police wrote in a communiqué that they were “forced” to take this step because of security concerns.

But the key question is: What kind of measure is this that, at the end of the chain, leads to the victory of the fans who are allowed to settle in the host sector? The example in St. Gallen shows how complicated the situation is and how fan groups are pushing the authorities ahead of them. Clearly visible to everyone in the arena, on television. In front of the stadium, the black Lucerne parade attracts a lot of onlookers. It is as if the sector closure in St. Gallen had received the death knell in front of everyone. April 1, 2024. It’s not a joke.

On a banner, the people of Lucerne, who show up at the stadium after a few minutes of the game, give the authorities a little malice to take with them on their way home. In other words: You don’t have to do things that are so complicated if everything is so simple.

In the stands, those responsible at FC Luzern are not just shaking because of the game, no, they are thinking about what would happen if the situation in the Lucerne sector escalated. The St. Gallen executive floor also looks fearfully at the corner of the stadium that should be deserted. With the exception of some pyrotechnics and a few firecrackers, there is little to blame for the outcasts who used the power of the masked group to gain access without violence.

When it comes to the subject of fan violence, reason sometimes seems to be lost. But he’s not completely absent.

The stadium is officially sold out

The stadium is officially sold out with 18,200 people. It is said that the Lucerne supporters purchased tickets for other sectors. That’s why the scenario that was used in the last match between St. Gallen and Lucerne was in the air. At that time, the people of Lucerne gathered outside the cordoned off sector, in the midst of the audience, who had to endure insults.

Now the stadium’s security service, in consultation with the police, chooses the option: because there is no alternative, into the sector. The example of St. Gallen confirms how well fan groups are organized. That in turn could mean: In the future, when a sector is closed, a sufficiently large group goes to the stadium as a group – and the floodgates open. That can’t be.

The last time Lucerne hosted FC St. Gallen, the home club stopped selling tickets because the area of ​​the stadium was closed. The people of Central Switzerland are talking about a six-figure copyist. The people of St. Gallen did not stop the sale, otherwise not so many people would have been able to show up at the stadium – with tickets, according to the police.

The St. Gallen police say: “It has been shown again and again that blocking the guest sector in a sold-out stadium brings with it various challenges in terms of security and that further measures will be necessary in the future.” The police put the number of Lucerne fans at 800, which is a bit high. There are probably around 500 in the sector.

The fans are looking for confrontation in no man’s land

Sometimes it’s hard to believe where masked football fans are, what they do and the effect they create on outsiders. So on Easter Saturday near the Lucerne stadium there was a cat-and-mouse game between two fan groups of around 50 each from St. Gallen and Lucerne. The occasion: the Promotions League game between Lucerne II and St. Gallen II.

Masking, threatening scenes, provocations, police presence in no man’s land, keeping two groups away. Onlookers are a few people who want to watch the offspring on the Lucerne side square.

Pictures of it are being passed around on social networks. Representatives of FC Lucerne don’t believe their eyes. Matthias Hüppi, the president of FC St. Gallen, appears in the mind’s eye with the question: “What can you do?” What this means on Easter Monday is obvious: the Lucerne fans own the stage in the St. Gallen stadium. What that should have been on Easter Saturday remains nebulous. The only thing that is certain is that it is related to what followed on Easter Monday. And: Those involved are young, male and ready to fight.

For now, the moral of the story is: The cascade model that the authorities are sticking to and can use to impose gradual measures in the wake of fan violence has been demonstrated. In Basel on Saturday and in Zurich on Monday, football fans threw erasers onto the ground. As if they wanted to say: Erase the cascade model.

In St. Gallen the authorities are answering the call. In the Lucerne sector you can see the banner: “Lozärn esch do”. Nothing easier than that. Apparently.