WARSAW (AFP) - Poland's premier league held talks on Tuesday with clubs and fan groups over government and police calls to ban away fans next season, amid efforts to stamp out hooliganism before Euro 2012.
"We exchanged views on the current situation. We are considering meeting again next week," Andrzej Rusko, head of the top-flight Ekstraklasa, was quoted as saying by Polish news agency PAP.
"After consultation with the clubs and supporters' associations, we will decide whether the autumn round of the new season will take place without away fans."
Last month, Poland's interior ministry and police called on the country's PZPN football association to extend a ban on away fans imposed in the dying days of last season, on security grounds.
The PZPN passed the issue to the Ekstraklasa, which has in turn sounded out its 16 clubs.
On Tuesday, the Polish tabloid Fakt reported that 13 had voted in favour of a ban, while one abstained and just two, including reigning champions Wisla Krakow, were against.
In an editorial, Fakt's sports editor Mariusz Kotowski slammed the pro-ban stance as "idiotic", arguing that the hammer-blow approach was not the way to solve hooliganism.
"They seem to think that after a few months, the problem will have gone away, and that when the ban comes to an end, there will be as much peace and quiet in Poland's stadiums as there is in the Faroe Islands' league," he said.
He also questioned the business sense of banning a section of the paying public.
Poland's 2011-2012 season kicks off on July 29.
Police and the PZPN got tough following crowd violence at the May 3 cup final between Legia Warsaw and Lech Poznan, two Ekstraklasa clubs known for their hooligans.
Ardent football fan Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned that hooliganism threatened the European Championship next next year in Poland and Ukraine.
At the police's behest, the PZPN banned away fans from the remaining fixtures in the Ekstraklasa, which wrapped up on May 29, and the second and third divisions, which ended on June 12.
Polish authorities say there are up to 5,000 hardcore hooligans in this nation of 38 million.
Beside causing trouble at home, they have proven a headache abroad.
Last week some 20 fans of second-division Pogon Szczecin—from a travelling crowd of just 300 at a friendly in Germany with FC Union Berlin—were arrested following clashes that left 19 police officers injured.
"We exchanged views on the current situation. We are considering meeting again next week," Andrzej Rusko, head of the top-flight Ekstraklasa, was quoted as saying by Polish news agency PAP.
"After consultation with the clubs and supporters' associations, we will decide whether the autumn round of the new season will take place without away fans."
Last month, Poland's interior ministry and police called on the country's PZPN football association to extend a ban on away fans imposed in the dying days of last season, on security grounds.
The PZPN passed the issue to the Ekstraklasa, which has in turn sounded out its 16 clubs.
On Tuesday, the Polish tabloid Fakt reported that 13 had voted in favour of a ban, while one abstained and just two, including reigning champions Wisla Krakow, were against.
In an editorial, Fakt's sports editor Mariusz Kotowski slammed the pro-ban stance as "idiotic", arguing that the hammer-blow approach was not the way to solve hooliganism.
"They seem to think that after a few months, the problem will have gone away, and that when the ban comes to an end, there will be as much peace and quiet in Poland's stadiums as there is in the Faroe Islands' league," he said.
He also questioned the business sense of banning a section of the paying public.
Poland's 2011-2012 season kicks off on July 29.
Police and the PZPN got tough following crowd violence at the May 3 cup final between Legia Warsaw and Lech Poznan, two Ekstraklasa clubs known for their hooligans.
Ardent football fan Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned that hooliganism threatened the European Championship next next year in Poland and Ukraine.
At the police's behest, the PZPN banned away fans from the remaining fixtures in the Ekstraklasa, which wrapped up on May 29, and the second and third divisions, which ended on June 12.
Polish authorities say there are up to 5,000 hardcore hooligans in this nation of 38 million.
Beside causing trouble at home, they have proven a headache abroad.
Last week some 20 fans of second-division Pogon Szczecin—from a travelling crowd of just 300 at a friendly in Germany with FC Union Berlin—were arrested following clashes that left 19 police officers injured.
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