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Peaceful Hungarian Football Fans Declared “Danger to Germany”

Hungary Today 2023.03.09.
Ferencváros

Hungary’s Ferencváros will play Bayer Leverkusen of Germany on Thursday evening in the Europa League round of 16. The train of peaceful Hungarian fans was temporarily held up by German police.

Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on Wednesday that about 2,300 Hungarian fans are expected to travel to Leverkusen, some of them individually, some of them by chartered flights, while the majority, about 1,000, will travel by a special train consisting of fourteen railway carriages.

“In order to ensure a high consular presence, I have ordered a total of seven consuls from our representations in Germany, Berlin, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, and Munich to Leverkusen,” he said. “Two consuls will be on duty at the stadium. Two consuls will be waiting at the train station for the Hungarians arriving there, and two consuls will be at the airport, and they will also be on the route used by the fans to get to the stadium so that if somebody has a problem they can help. And our seventh consul will be prepared to replace any documents that may need to be replaced,” he said.

Fans traveling by train to Leverkusen reported on Thursday that they had been held up by German police. According to the Instagram page Fradi.mob,

the police claimed that the train posed a threat to Germany, based on what they had seen in videos and pictures.

Finally, two hours later, after action was taken by Ferencváros and the Hungarian Foreign Ministry, according to Fradi.mob, the train was allowed to continue.

 

A bejegyzés megtekintése az Instagramon

 

fradimob (@fradi.mob) által megosztott bejegyzés

As for the match, Ferencváros head coach Stanislav Cherchesov said Bayer Leverkusen was the favorite over Ferencváros, but that does not mean anything. Xabi Alonso, the German team’s head coach, says Ferencváros is a similar force to AS Monaco, who were beaten by Leverkusen.

Ferencváros players with head coach Cherchesov at Bayer Leverkusen’s stadium (Photo: MTI/Kovács Tamás)

“I respect Ferencváros, who deservedly won the group, just ahead of Monaco. We need to give our best performance both here and in Budapest to win and qualify to the next round next week,” he said. “I am glad that the rival coach thinks Ferencváros is a good team, but compared to Monaco we are talking about two very different clubs,” Cherchesov responded.

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Featured photo via Facebook/Szijjártó Péter


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