This statement is also available in German.
What is the IMK – and why is it targeting fans?
Since 1954, the interior ministers of the federal government and the states have met regularly at what is called the Conference of Interior Ministers (IMK). The declared goal of these meetings is to intensify cross-state cooperation on internal and security policy issues and thus implement measures for an allegedly better security situation. Various organizations have formed extensive criticism and protests against this practice. At the core of the criticism are looming measures such as the introduction of personalized tickets, a new tightened procedure for stadium bans, the expansion of AI-based surveillance systems, and other steps that further advance the “war on pyrotechnics.”
The alliance “Fanszenen Deutschland” is drawing attention to these issues with a signature campaign and explanatory texts on its website. The umbrella organization of fan legal assistance groups also provides comprehensive information about the impending restrictions.
Leading the charge in this circus of political pseudo-outrage: the police unions. They seize every opportunity to create alarm and present themselves as indispensable defenders of “public order.” Behind the heated rhetoric lies a clear interest: higher budgets, more powers, and the further expansion of police authority in society.
Threatening Measures – Stadium Bans as a Political Tool
The entirety of the proposed measures represents a frontal attack on German fan culture and the social space of the stadium. But they also carry a particularly high potential for authoritarian abuse and arbitrariness.
Especially dangerous in this context is the discussed expansion of stadium bans:
Even the initiation of an investigation would automatically lead to a person being barred from attending matches. Under the guise of “prevention,” fundamental principles of the rule of law, such as the presumption of innocence, would be completely abolished.
Furthermore, the existing local commissions, which currently decide on stadium bans based on their local knowledge, would see their decision-making powers drastically curtailed. By creating a higher-level authority that can take over cases at any time without giving reasons, political and police influence would be given free rein. This would create an instrument that could easily and without oversight be used against unwanted, critical, or active fans. The possibilities for abuse and persecution under the new stadium ban practice are almost unimaginable. A powerful tool for censoring anti-racist and anti-fascist voices in the stands would emerge.
Personalized Tickets – An Anti-Racist Perspective
Personalized tickets create unnecessary hurdles and exclude people who do not have a fixed ID. ID requirements can pose a security risk for refugees and reinforce distrustful interactions with authorities. Instead of promoting integration, this creates additional fear and insecurity. The measure thus primarily affects those who are already marginalized. Overall, personalized tickets endanger anti-racist initiatives that enable people without papers to attend matches together.
An Unholy Alliance – Backroom Politics Without Fans
As early as October 2024, the umbrella organization of fan legal assistance groups criticized that the summit of politics and associations on stadium security amounted to an “attack on free and self-determined fan culture.” Since then, secret negotiations have been taking place behind the scenes in the working group “BLoAG” in classic backroom-politics style. Excluding critical voices from this working group fits perfectly into the worldview of all actors who prioritize control and authority over participation and democratic discourse.
By excluding key civil society actors—fan representatives, fan assistance groups, independent experts—the discursive space is artificially narrowed. Political negotiation is reduced to a mere formality; the outcome is effectively predetermined before serious talks even begin.
Repression as a Strategy of Power
The attacks on free, loud, and critical fan culture are part of an authoritarian restructuring through which the state responds to the crisis of capitalism. Under the pretext of “order” and “protection,” freedoms, collective self-organization, and social security are gradually restricted.
Control replaces social responsibility and self-regulation. The security state manages the crisis, and anyone who does not conform is declared a threat.
This trend is visible in many areas: the expansion of digital surveillance, the use of cameras and AI in public spaces, police adoption of analysis systems like Palantir, new police laws that increase police power, more repressive asylum laws, and the dismantling of social benefits. This policy follows the principle of securitization: social groups are declared “security problems” to legitimize extraordinary measures. Football fans, migrants, or activists are turned into threats to justify surveillance, data collection, and restrictions on freedoms. Politics becomes a police matter.
At its core, this is about defending existing power structures. The security state does not protect “society” but an order based on inequality, exclusion, and control. Football fans who oppose racism or police arbitrariness become symbolic figures in a broader conflict: between capitalist exploitation logic and social emancipation.
Repression as an International Project
Developments in Germany are not isolated. Across Europe and beyond, football is becoming a testing ground for authoritarian security strategies. Places where subculture thrives are gradually transformed into monitored spaces.
A striking example: in October 2025, a match in Tel Aviv was abandoned by the police, followed by violent attacks against the anti-racist fan scene of Hapoel Tel Aviv. The match was stopped under the pretext of pyro use. Similar trends can be observed in Italy, where the Tessera del tifoso (“Fan ID”) was introduced in 2009, allowing stadium access only under state registration. What was once sold as a tool against violence has almost completely hollowed out a vibrant fan culture. Many terraces have been thinned out, depoliticized, or displaced entirely. Those who refused control lost the right to follow their team. Entire fan groups were often banned from away games. For many ultras, the football pitch is no longer a place of freedom but a symbol of state surveillance.
Other countries show similar developments: Turkey introduced the Passolig card in 2013—without this personalized ticket, stadium visits are impossible. In Poland and Hungary, biometric access control has long been standard in modern arenas. Everywhere, it is clear: new surveillance technologies are tested on football fans, whose lobby is considered too small to resist, making them guinea pigs. Authorities clearly fear critical and uncomfortable fan culture.
Reports by European Digital Rights (EDRi) and the Green European Foundation highlight that football fans in several European countries increasingly serve as a test population for digital control and surveillance technologies. These include biometric identification methods such as facial recognition and algorithm-based risk and behavior analysis. These tools do not create safety; they shift the boundaries of what is permissible. They turn stadiums, squares, and streets into spaces of permanent observation, where freedom is under general suspicion and far too many people have access to individuals’ identities—whose “crime” is scanning a ticket and standing in the fan block.
The criminalization and surveillance of fan cultures is therefore not a national side issue but an expression of an international trend: an authoritarian response to systemic crisis. Instead of addressing root causes such as poverty, exclusion, or racism, governments rely on control, data collection, and discipline.
The fight against repression in football is therefore also a fight against the transformation of Europe into a continent of surveillance and isolation. Those who organize in the stands are not only fighting for fan rights but for the right to free public space and self-determination—here and everywhere.
Defend Fan Freedom Together – Alerta Network, November 2025