Game canceled due to national celebration: FCB fans want to go to Lucerne

That’s the schedule for the coming weekend in Lucerne: Alain Berset and the national celebration instead of the Super League and FC Basel. Because: The game between FC Luzern and FC Basel, originally scheduled for Sunday, was to give way to the KKL front on the Europaplatz, which also takes place on 31 July.

This is because the match and the national festival would clash with each other, as announced by the police a month earlier at the request of the “Lüzerner Zeitung”. Fans of FC Basel and the 1 August celebration – it would be a “huge risk”, as it was called at the time. It is still unclear when the postponed game will be rescheduled.

But one thing is certain: the Basel team does not want to stick with the postponement of the game. Ultimately, the explanation given by the Lucerne police was “absurd in many ways”, as the Matanzer Curve wrote on its website on Monday morning. Either way you want to set a signal:

“Despite the Games being postponed, we are traveling to Lucerne – in this case, for a national celebration.”

The reason for the cancellation of the Games was “absurd”, among other things, because there was basically no interest in the national festival and the festivities were geographically limited to Europaplatz, as the people of Basel write.

So you’ve really only been in town once in the past few years – with this FCB fans again addressing the events in January. At that time a clash broke out between the police and the guests after the game in Lucerne. The fact that the fan march from the train station to the stadium, which was tolerated earlier, was no longer tolerated, caused a stir in the run-up.

There is also a stimulus figure on site in Lucerne on Sunday, with Federal Councilor Alain Burset: just over a month ago, the entire Federal Council spoke out in favor of a tougher course in relation to football fans.

Instead of a single channel fan march, is chaos spreading again?

As the police reported to the “Luzner Zeitung” upon request, they were aware of the announcement of the Müttner curve. As media spokesman Christian Bertschi says, one will prepare accordingly and is in contact with the organizers of the national festival. But the following also applies: “Basically, anyone can go to a national festival,” Bertschi says. And:

“As long as everyone present behaves, there is no reason to remove anyone from the program.”

However, the police did not make any specific statements about the already planned procedure – the question of increasing the number of emergency services remains unanswered. The police also leave it open whether only a certain number of fans would warrant or even justify the intervention.

But one thing is clear: in early January, FCB fans decided not to travel together in protest – instead of a channeled fan march, there was chaos. It will be even more difficult to control the crowd on Sunday as well. The people of Basel tend to come in small groups – in civilian clothing or with “Schwitz-Libli”, as the Muttner curve writes.

Lastly, was it a mistake to cancel the game? Burtsky says: No:

“Even today, it is not possible for the police to guarantee security for another major event on the day of a football game.”

The fact that the Swiss Football League had scheduled the game in Lucerne for 31 July was based on a misunderstanding. The information was already given along with the publication of the programme.

The whole thing has been taken with humor so far, at least online: