Arrests follow anti-Lithuanian banner at Europa League match

Photo: Facebook/Glos Wielkopolskiej

“A group of over a dozen who held the banner has been identified,” said Andrzej Borowiak, spokesman for the police in Poznan.

“Ten people have been arrested,” he confirmed, adding that “further arrests are expected.”

The banner in question was unfurled during a third qualifying round Europa League match between Lech Poznan and Zalgiris Vilnius.

“Lithuanian scum kneel before your Polish master,” the banner read ( Litewski chamie, kleknij przed polskim panem).

It is expected that the detained men will be charged today.

Hooligans under fire

The arrests follow Prime Minister Donald Tusk's pledge this week to crack down on football hooliganism.

Tusk held a special meeting on Wednesday with Minister of Justice Marek Biernacki and Minister of the Interior Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, focusing on hooliganism.

The meeting followed both a brawl on Sunday between Polish football fans and Mexican sailors at a beach in Gdynia, and condemnation by Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the “scandalous, anti-Lithuanian" banner from the 8 August match.

“We will find ways, if necessary, to make rapid changes to the law, and there will certainly be rapid changes in procedures, so that those who are detained for taking part in a fight, and for violence against other people, will end up in prison,” Tusk said.

Justice Minister Marek Biernacki said that one of the problems in Poland with hooligans is that “suspended sentences are abused,” and that “the certainty of being punished had become a myth.”

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz declared that “the state will do everything to isolate them [the hooligans] from the general public.” (nh)

Source: PAP/IAR