Men's Football UEFA European Conference League 2023 - 2024

[Dennis 712]

6 hours ago, Monzanator said:

AZ Alkmaar beat Legia Warsaw 1-0 but two Legia players (Josue & Pankov) were arrested after the game since they allegedly caused bodily harm to one of the stadium stewards In return Legia owner claims he was hit by the Dutch police when he tried to intervene and find out what's going on.

 

 

I live in Alkmaar, was born and raised here, and have never seen this much police in and around the city as I saw yesterday. They were really worried about the fans of Legia.

 

It's the story of Legia against the story of the Dutch police now. Police here claims that fans of Legia were aggressive, managed to steal pepperspray and batons from the police, and Legia fans without tickets stormed the stadium and managed to get in. The two players that got arrested allegedly abused personnel of AZ Alkmaar.

 

Polish politicians are now also complaining, contacted the Dutch Prime Minister and even proposed to get the European Parliament involved in this case. Dutch media suggest that it's because of the upcoming elections in Poland as their party, PiS, is known for being critical towards Western Europe in general. Not sure if there's any truth to that.

[Monzanator 4,502]

It's clear there's anti-Polish bias in Netherlands for a long while and actually the Legia owner Mioduski is a staunch critic of Law & Justice. He's associated with Civic Platform. There is a major shitshow in the Polish media and most sports journalists want our government to act and bring the EU or whatever hammer they can find. If this happened the other way around - Dutch players arrested in Poland - you would see van der Leyen and other big wig politicians jump all over the Polish government. But since it's the Dutch making the arrests I suppose EU would try to sweep this case under the rug - unless maybe UEFA steps in to investigate.

 

The other problem is that Dutch police arrested non-Poles, Josue from Portugal (EU nation) who was released earlier and Pankov from Serbia (so non-EU country) who was released later. So they didn't keep it strictly against Poles but managed to get other nations involved. Moreover our media remind everyone about Alkmaar vs West Ham unrest and back then UEFA still swept it under the rug so let's see what happens when players and not hooligans are involved.

 

Either way the narrative in Polish media is set, Netherlands is as xenophobic as many other alleged anti-democratic countries. This goes beyond the usual anti-Law & Justice tone in the Western media. Mioduski was also harrassed and stuck by the police and he's literally the last person who would support Law & Justice so there's little chance the Dutch media & police can spin that narrative. They chose the wrong person to attack and he's an executive in the European Club Association so not your rich club owner with zero ties to football governing bodies.

[heywoodu 15,141]

1 hour ago, Monzanator said:

It's clear there's anti-Polish bias in Netherlands for a long while and actually the Legia owner Mioduski is a staunch critic of Law & Justice. He's associated with Civic Platform. There is a major shitshow in the Polish media and most sports journalists want our government to act and bring the EU or whatever hammer they can find. If this happened the other way around - Dutch players arrested in Poland - you would see van der Leyen and other big wig politicians jump all over the Polish government. But since it's the Dutch making the arrests I suppose EU would try to sweep this case under the rug - unless maybe UEFA steps in to investigate.

 

The other problem is that Dutch police arrested non-Poles, Josue from Portugal (EU nation) who was released earlier and Pankov from Serbia (so non-EU country) who was released later. So they didn't keep it strictly against Poles but managed to get other nations involved. Moreover our media remind everyone about Alkmaar vs West Ham unrest and back then UEFA still swept it under the rug so let's see what happens when players and not hooligans are involved.

 

Either way the narrative in Polish media is set, Netherlands is as xenophobic as many other alleged anti-democratic countries. This goes beyond the usual anti-Law & Justice tone in the Western media. Mioduski was also harrassed and stuck by the police and he's literally the last person who would support Law & Justice so there's little chance the Dutch media & police can spin that narrative. They chose the wrong person to attack and he's an executive in the European Club Association so not your rich club owner with zero ties to football governing bodies.

Whoever they arrested already makes it quite clear this has nothing to do with some 'anti-Poland' thing. It is really easy: said players, whatever their nationality may be, would not have been arrested if they had behaved themselves somewhat normally.

 

But yeah, narratives must be set, and of course 'it is the fault of the police' is always a lot easier to sell to the masses than football players and hooligans acting like....well, hooligans. Maybe the players took a page out of the book of their 'fans' (hooligans, one should say), who violently stormed the gates already before the match. Good thing there was a lot of police present, these problems were....expected, to say the least.

 

Dutch media isn't going to spin much though. It's a day ago and already almost nobody cares anymore, this will be forgotten before the weekend is over now that the aggressively acting players have been released.

Edited October 6, 2023 by heywoodu

[Monzanator 4,502]

4 hours ago, heywoodu said:

Whoever they arrested already makes it quite clear this has nothing to do with some 'anti-Poland' thing. It is really easy: said players, whatever their nationality may be, would not have been arrested if they had behaved themselves somewhat normally.

 

But yeah, narratives must be set, and of course 'it is the fault of the police' is always a lot easier to sell to the masses than football players and hooligans acting like....well, hooligans. Maybe the players took a page out of the book of their 'fans' (hooligans, one should say), who violently stormed the gates already before the match. Good thing there was a lot of police present, these problems were....expected, to say the least.

 

Dutch media isn't going to spin much though. It's a day ago and already almost nobody cares anymore, this will be forgotten before the weekend is over now that the aggressively acting players have been released.

 

Of course you will defend whatever the Dutch police does. And the case will be quickly swept under the rug. After all those big bad Poles are always the worst and Netherlands is the land of progress. Plus it's yesterday's news alright. If this was other way around EU would be all over to prove how outdated and xenophobic Poland is.

[Noorderling29 167]

The most probable explanation is (some) Polish fans/players misbehaving and the Dutch police subsequently overreacting.  Both have been known to happen. But of course it’s always easier to take a black and white view and assume that your side is lilywhite and the other side is entirely to blame. 

The idea that the Dutch police either know or care what parties form the Polish government, which policies those government implements and which individuals either support or oppose that government and their behavior was somehow guided by that knowledge is rather preposterous. This could have happened with any group of supporters from any country, even our own. 

An independent inquiry will be held and the truth will be ascertained and blame will be apportioned. History shows that these inquiries are far from a whitewash and tend to be very critical of police behavior. 
 

 

Edited October 7, 2023 by Noorderling29

[Monzanator 4,502]

The major of Alkmaar Anja Schouten has blocked her twitter account and appears to pretend nothing has happened. Good luck in hiding behind protected status on social media

 

Another question is if the Legia fans are all to blame why none of them were arrested? The only people arrested were the two Legia players.

 

Polish media are staying hot on this topic and it appears the Dutch police chief of match security was a completely new guy and this was the first match he supervized in this role.

[hckošice 14,829]

FC Aberdeen fans throwing snowballs on the home HJK Helsinki goalkeeper

 

 

[heywoodu 15,141]

Riots in Birmingham yesterday for Aston Villa against....yeah, no points for the correct answer: Legia, including a police officer apparently catching fire. Waiting for Legia to say it was totally all the fault of everyone except for the people pretending to be Legia's fans  

Edited December 1, 2023 by heywoodu

[thepharoah 2,405]

 

Legia Warsaw Ultras delivered a message to Urfa yesterday where they lost to Molde 3-0 

Edited February 23 by thepharoah

[Henry_Leon 1,397]

Round of 16