Baumgart and Keller criticize strict police checks on fan buses

Those in charge at 1. FC Köln sharply criticized the strict police controls, which caused a large number of the Cologne fan buses to turn back on their way to the away game at VfB Stuttgart.

“It annoyed me that some of our boys came to a police check. It was a deliberate action. The checks that were carried out lasted for hours. Some of the boys just drove home,” Baumgart said Picture.

Like him table football reported, the six Cologne fan buses were stopped by the police on their way to Stuttgart in order to carry out a “hazard prevention operation”. Five of the six buses refused to be checked, and one bus driver is said to have refused to open his door. Only one bus, mostly occupied by women and children, endured the police action and then continued its journey to the game. The remaining buses finally returned to Cologne for fear of not arriving in Stuttgart on time.

“Before the game, I got the information that the buses had been checked by the police,” said Cologne’s sports director Christian Keller table football quoted: “The police check is said to have been planned quite intensively, and then the inmates, in conjunction with the police, decided that they would only come to the game so late that they would drive home again. I cannot judge that conclusively. It would be but of course it would have been nice if the fans had been here.”

1. FC Köln: No admission for made-up fans? Steffen Baumgart reacts

In the end, around 4,000 Cologne fans are said to have made it into the stadium. However, the admission controls also caused trouble. The picture reported that costumed and made-up Cologne fans were denied entry.

FC coach Baumgart had no understanding for that. “I’m relatively sure that there is a ban on masking, a ban on make-up would be new to me,” said Baumgart.