Driessen Calls for Ban on Away Fans After Feyenoord Chaos
Valentijn Driessen has run out of patience with Feyenoord’s travelling support. After the chaos in Leeuwarden on Sunday, the De Telegraaf football editor says it is time to shut the door on away fans altogether.
Fireworks, panic, and injuries
SC Cambuur v Feyenoord had barely settled when it exploded off the pitch. After 12 minutes, the referee halted the match as a barrage of fireworks erupted from the away end in the South Stand. What first looked like another ugly but familiar incident quickly turned into something far more serious.
Cambuur later revealed the full impact in an official statement. Five supporters were injured and, the club stressed, they are “not doing well”. The victims are mainly suffering from burns, hearing damage and eye injuries. The club said all attention is now on those hurt, stressing that everyone at Cambuur is “enormously sympathetic” to the supporters and their families.
The fireworks did not just go up. According to Cambuur, they were also fired towards the pitch and into surrounding stands, spreading fear and confusion around the stadium.
‘They are simply criminals’
Driessen did not soften his words when he addressed the scenes. He placed the blame squarely on the Feyenoord fans who orchestrated the display.
“They are simply criminals, of course. It was an organised action,” he said. He described having spoken to someone who claimed it had been done “for fun”. That, for Driessen, was beyond comprehension: “If this is what you get your pleasure from, you’re not right in the head.”
For him, this is no longer a matter of a few idiots in the crowd. It is a structural problem that, in his view, Dutch football authorities have failed to tackle decisively.
Call for a hard line: ban away fans
Driessen wants the KNVB to act, and act hard. His solution is blunt.
“I argue for it every time: stop with away supporters. Then you get rid of a whole lot of trouble,” he insisted. As an example, he pointed to Feyenoord v Ajax being played on a Saturday evening, something that used to be considered too risky. “And that is possible, because there are no Ajax supporters. Lovely, isn’t it?”
The message is clear: if the price of atmosphere is this kind of violence and injury, he believes the game is better off without it.
How did so many fireworks get in?
One question hangs over the whole affair: how did this amount of pyrotechnics make it into the Cambuur stadium in the first place?
Driessen is astonished. He wonders how such a large arsenal of fireworks and flares slipped through security. Clearing the away section during the incident would have been a logical step in his eyes, but he also recognises the dilemma for the local authorities.
“If you then clear the place out, you might be bringing all sorts of misery on yourself. The mayor will naturally have taken that into consideration,” he said. “Because it would have been very normal to clear out that section.”
Security checks, stewarding, and the role of local officials now come under the microscope, with the images from Leeuwarden serving as a stark warning of what can happen when things are missed.
Feyenoord urged to track down culprits
Attention now turns to Feyenoord and how the club responds. Driessen believes the Rotterdam side must thoroughly investigate who was in that away end.
“I think Feyenoord really need to look carefully at who was there,” he said, pointing to the usual registration systems. “Normally speaking that is not a problem, because you have gold club card holders or something like that.”
This time, though, he suspects the system failed. The away section was “absolutely packed”, he noted, and he believes “a great many slipped through the net”. Those, in his eyes, were the troublemakers responsible for what he called “those horrific scenes”.
The images from Leeuwarden will linger. The question now is whether Dutch football finally draws a line and changes its approach to away support, or waits for the next stadium to be lit up for all the wrong reasons.
