It did not take long before the Dortmund stadium announcers gave up the intention to present the usual hints with which the burning of pyrotechnics is otherwise reacted. They should have warned in an endless loop of the dangers and pointed out the known prohibitions, because during the 6:1 of the BVB against Cologne burned almost continuously fireworks in the guest block. Sometimes in choreographed form, sometimes there were only individual torches, in the end over 100 Bengal fires are said to have been consumed.

A cameraman who had smoke particles in his eyes had to seek medical treatment. "Something like that is not possible," said Christian Keller, the managing director of the Cologne, which may have to reckon with a penalty in the six-digit range. Fortunately, contrary to initial reports of hospitalization, the cameraman was able to be discharged "after outpatient medical treatment" in an ambulance at the stadium, police said afterwards.

But the problem behind this process is becoming more and more visible. It is an open secret that the Ultra groups burned pyrotechnics for years in consultation with their clubs on selected occasions, usually holding these illegal rituals away from home and only for a few minutes at an agreed time. Since the end of the pandemic, a new dynamic has developed: there are real excesses, including in the corners of the home teams, and there are regular injuries.

"Completely exposed in the brain"

At the Revierderby on Schalke a week ago, a photographer was injured by a flare, also here burned permanently torches in the guest block. And at the second division match between St. Pauli and Hansa Rostock, the guests ignited so violently that Rostock board member Robert Marien said: "The situation was dangerous. Not only red lines were crossed. For some, it was completely exposed in the brain."

But those responsible in the clubs are just as helpless as the police. North Rhine-Westphalia's Interior Minister Herbert Reul recently announced after a raid on the ultra and hooligan scenes of Schalke, Dortmund and Rot-Weiss Essen that not only violence, but also the flaring of pyrotechnics would be "consistently punished". That sounded like a plan, but the searches and threats of punishment had been seen as a provocation in the fan scene. "You are creating an enemy that you are not up to," was written on a banner in the Schalke curve at the Revierderby.

The blocks are firmly in the hands of the organized fans, the police are quite powerless here. Because an operation in the tightly occupied standing areas would probably also put many bystanders in danger. This is not an option.

There is a lack of a "reasonable" solution, said Cologne coach Steffen Baumgart on Saturday, the spiral of escalation, which is currently turning faster and faster, can not be stopped in his eyes with reprisals. It is not expedient "that we always ban it, but we have to find a solution with the boys," explained Baumgart, who also believes "that the fronts are hardened".