Dortmund criticizes police actions against fans going to Italy for Champions League match

DORTMUND, Germany (AP) — Borussia Dortmund says “disproportionate” police measures have prevented some of its fans from traveling to Italy for Wednesday’s Champions League game against Atalanta, while police in Italy have also visited supporters who already made the trip.

“While a security-oriented risk assessment for a football match is understandable, Borussia Dortmund is more than surprised by the scope and scale of the police measures taken,” the club said in a statement on Tuesday. “Such measures, in this form and intensity, have never before been implemented in connection with Borussia Dortmund’s international away matches.”

It said it was looking for further information on the “background and legal basis of these measures, which are completely incomprehensible to the club.”

The Südtribune Dortmund supporters’ group, which encompasses many smaller fan groups, had already announced earlier Tuesday that German police had stopped Dortmund supporters from traveling to Italy over the weekend, but that the prohibitions were successfully challenged in expedited proceedings.

However, because of the federal police’s search for up to 300 Dortmund fans whose presence in Bergamo has been banned for what Südtribune Dortmund said were “flimsy reasons,” it was creating problems for all Dortmund fans hoping to make their way to the game.

Südtribune Dortmund said that its active groups therefore “have reluctantly decided to stay away from the match in Bergamo.”

Dortmund, which holds a 2-0 lead over Atalanta from the first leg of their playoff, said in its statement that it “expressly regrets that some of its fans will not be able to attend the away game in Bergamo in the stadium due to this questionable behavior by the authorities.”

___

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer