England plays Serbia in Group C of the UEFA European Football Championship in Germany.
Police rushed to separate fighting football fans before the match between England and Serbia at Euro 2024 in Germany.
On Sunday, social media images showed men throwing chairs at each other outside a restaurant decorated with Serbian flags in the western city of Gelsenkirchen. A group hastily retreated when riot police arrived and tackled at least one man to the ground.
A Serbian fan told The Associated Press that a group of people had thrown glasses and stones at the area outside a downtown bar where he and others were sitting together drinking beer.
“There was a crash and we are fine. So that's it, we go to the game, we hope to win. It's about football,” said the man, who identified himself only as Vladimir and said he was from Belgrade, the capital of Serbia.
Journalists who arrived shortly after the incident found the street littered with broken glass and tables while several dozen police officers waited.
Sunday night's match between England and Serbia has been branded “high risk” by police over concerns about possible fan violence.
“So far, what 'high risk' means in practice is that low-alcohol drinks will be sold and no alcohol will be allowed to be drunk inside the stadium stands,” said Al Jazeera's Dominic Kane, reporting from Munich.
Only low-alcohol beer is served at the Gelsenkirchen stadium to try to reduce the possibility of problems.
“A complicating factor is that UEFA, the parent organization of these championships, has said that barriers inside the stadium must be removed… suggesting that English and Serbian fans could be mixing inside the stadium,” Kane noted, adding that the German police have been making great efforts to prevent such hooligan fights.
Some 20,000 English fans and 10,000 Serbian fans are expected to converge on the city for the match.
The match will be played at the Arena AufSchalke and will begin at 9:00 p.m. local time (7:00 p.m. GMT).
