One of Serbia’s most notorious football hooligans Bogdanov cutting the fence separating rival fans during a Euros 2012 match (Picture: Calanni/AP)
Police are preparing for violence as England meet Serbia in the Lions’ first match at the Euros on Sunday.
A troupe of 500 Serbian ultras are expected to be among a crowd of 40,000 fans travelling to Gelsenkirchen, the city’s police chief Peter Both told The Telegraph.
They may be a tiny minority, but this ‘criminal element’ with a fondness for Vladimir Putin has a history of violence.
One Serbian fan told the paper: ‘On the pitch you will probably win but off the pitch it’s not a contest. We aren’t afraid of anyone.
‘We learned everything we know from the Italians and the English but they are no match for strong Serbian men.’
Long associated with Serbian nationalism, Europe’s most feared football hooligans have a history of extreme violence.
Delije – the ultras of Red Star Belgrade, or FK Crvena zvezda – formed the bulk of the Serbian Volunteer Guard (SDG), which committed murder, rape and torture in the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s.
Other members came from the Partizan Gravediggers – Grobari – whose hooliganism saw their team banned from UEFA Cup 2007-08.
Serbian ultras unveil a banner saying ‘Goodbye Globoçica’, a Kosovan town mostly destroyed in the war of independence from Serbia (Picture: EMPICS Sport)
The SDG was formed just months after Red Star met Dynamo Zagreb in Croatia for what would be the last match of the Yugoslav league before the entire state fell apart.
It was abandoned after just 10 minutes as thousands of Delije battled police and Zagreb’s ‘Bad Blue Boys’ in what’s been described as the worst violence in football history, The Observer reported.
Months later, in October 1990, the firm’s leader Zelijko ‘Arkan’ Raznatovic launched the SDG, which quickly became known as Arkan’s Tigers.
The paramilitary group’s violence was unleashed on Croats in Croatia, Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Albanians in Kosovo in the wars that followed.
Arkan, a thief already on Interpol’s most-wanted list, had been recruited to lead Delije by Serbia’s former security chief Jovica Stanišić, who’s currently serving a 15-year sentence for crimes against humanity.
Stanišić was convicted in 2021 for his role in plans to ethnically cleans non-Serbs from swathes of the Balkans.
One Red Star supporter who joined the Tigers, before they were absorbed into the Yugoslav Army in 1996, said: ‘I went straight to Arkan’s people in Croatia.
‘As a nationalist I thought it was my duty to be there. At first, I was impressed with the order and the sense of discipline.
‘The training was good and the emphasis on cleansing the Croatians and Muslims from Serb territory was essential.
Serbia’s Delije ultras are among Europe’s most feared football hooligans
‘But I didn’t witness the atrocities that the Western media talk about. I didn’t see much criminal behaviour.’
Arkan himself was charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
But he was shot dead with a bullet in the eye while drinking at Belgrade’s upmarket InterContinental Hotel in 2000.
His ultras’ violence continued though.
A year after Arkan’s death, they attacked Serbia’s first ever gay pride parade.
In 2003, Delije set fire to stadium seats they’d doused in petrol after a match between Red Star lost to Sartid, The Observer reported.
Hundreds of riot police and horseback officers tried to stop thousands of Red Star ultras invading the pitch.
Imagery celebrating Serbia’s wars and ethnic cleansing are a common feature among the country’s football ultras (Picture: Pedja Milosavljevic/AFP)
Ultras armed with knives and iron bars pour petrol onto seats during a cup final against Sartid of Smederevo in May 2003.
But several hundred of them, many carrying knives and iron bars, broke through police lines while others smashed up their own team’s bus outside.
They had spent the game chanting, ‘We hope you die like all those Italians at Heysel’, and ‘You’re going to get your fucking head stamped on like a Kosovan’.
A Euros qualifying match between Serbia and Italy was forced to be abandoned in 2012 due to violence led by Ivan Bogdanov, a hooligan with links to the far-right.
He’s been present at ultra riots in Ukraine and during a match against Albania.
In 2022, Serbian fans chanted ‘kill the Albanians’ and ‘Kosovo is the heart of Serbia’, reflecting Serbia’s refusal to recognise Albanian-dominated Kosovo’s independence.
Others wore t-shirts celebrating convicted Ratko Mladić, who was responsible for thousands of deaths in the Srebrenica massacre.
They have also been pictured holding signs saying ‘Ciao Globoçica’, referring to a Kosovan border town almost obliterated during the war.
Last December, Red Star ultras armed with sticks stormed a Belgrade bar full of Manchester City fans ahead of a Champions League match.
With a reputation like this, it is little surprise are on alert ahead of the England-Serbia meet, which has been branded the most ‘high-risk’ of the Euros.
But Dr Geoff Pearson, senior lecturer in criminal law at the University of Manchester, who went undercover among Blackpool ultras in the 1990s, saidinternational football tournaments tend to be ‘quite low risk’ for attacks.
Bogdanov spent several months in an Italian jail after one incident (Picture: Simone Arveda/AFP via Getty Images)
He told Metro.co.uk: ‘It is very rare to see large scale disorder or violence at World Cups or European championships in the same way we do at club competitions.
‘Ultra groups that are attached to clubs typically do not travel with national teams and are not interested.
‘There have obviously been attacks in the past – like the European championship in Germany in 1988 and the attacks by Russian hooligans on England fans in Marseilles in 2016.
‘So, there have been incidents and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that we will see more.
‘But you would firstly have to have a group of violent ultras who are willing to travel with their national team to a tournament.
‘And secondly, they would have to be able to evade authorities. And the German football police are some of the best in the world and know how to organise high-risk torunaments.
‘If the Russian hooligans had attempted an attack not in France but in Germany, they would have been stopped.’
Gelsenkirchen’s police chief Both said: ‘There is risk, of course, but we are very, very well prepared.
‘In principle, our riot-control units will keep a low profile.
‘But if individuals or groups seek to cause disorder or engage in violent behaviour, these police units will be there. We will be there and we will intervene and take proactive action.’
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