The Rotterdam police have opened an investigation into the banners with death threats to Rotterdam mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb and Paul van Dorst, co-founder of the LGBTI+ supporter group Roze Kameraden. A police spokesperson confirmed this on Friday. Supporters who probably belong to the Rotterdam Youth Kern (RJK) kept the curtains up in Albanian Tirana, where Feyenoord played the final of the Conference League against Roma on Wednesday.
A photo from the ‘Hooligans.cz Official’ Twitter account (more than 10,000 followers) shows five large white banners with black and red texts on them. The slogans are homophobic, misogynistic and glorify Adolf Hitler. The Feyenoord fans themselves are unrecognizable. Only their bare legs – they all wear shorts – stick out from under the cloths. They are on a field near the stadium. The police officers present said they did not see the banners in the stadium itself.
“A serious threat to Roze Comrades, an attack on the LGBTI+ community,” writes Rotterdam councilor Co Engberts (PvdA) in a response to Twitter. “All support goes to our mayor Aboutaleb and his loved ones for these disgusting texts. Hopefully the perpetrators can be identified soon,” the councilor concluded in his message. In addition, he calls on the municipality to “do more”, he says to ask questions to the council and says that he finds it “incomprehensible” that Feyenoord does not act.
Reaction Feyenoord
The football club told ANP news agency earlier today that it says it cannot tackle the problem alone. “Although it damages the name of the club and we are very disappointed about it, it is clear that Feyenoord cannot solve this social problem, and in any case not alone. If only because we don’t know who they are and this always takes place outside the stadium.”
The chairman of the Feyenoord supporters’ association tells RTV Rijnmond that he finds the action particularly sad. He emphasizes that this “is not Feyenoord”, but a “group with extreme ideas”.
It is not the first time that the RJK (an estimated 150 supporters between the ages of 15 and 25) has been discredited after homophobic texts were written on the roller door of Van Dorst’s gym. There was also a death threat addressed to the three board members. All this signed with ‘RJK’, a branch of the hard core of Feyenoord. Later, the building of the Rotterdam COC, which spoke out in favor of the Pink Comrades, was also painted over. Sender: the RJK. Four people in their twenties were arrested for that incident in February this year.