Tempers Literally Flare When Hamburg Soccer Fans Burn Field in Protest of Historic Relegation

Ever since the German professional soccer league Bundesliga began in 1963, the Hamburg city team Hamburg SV has never been relegated to the league’s second tier.

That is, of course, until Saturday. The club needed to win their final match of the season against Borussia Mönchengladbach while Köln needed to knock off Wolfsburg on the same day.

Hamburg held up their half of the bargain, winning 2-1. But Wolfsburg walked away from their match with a 4-1 victory, meaning Hamburg is out of the top flight tier.

Fans watching in the stadium weren’t happy with this realization. Once regulation play was over, fans began shooting off fireworks and flares inside the stadium. The referee’s added time was waived off as police rushed in to secure the players safety and prevent a riot from breaking out.

Fox Soccer aired the match’s international broadcast, and the commentators inside the booth reacted with disgust at the sight of the flames and smoke.

“Immediately following that Wolfsburg goal, fireworks and flares are being let off,” one commentator said. “Play coming to an end, it’s suspended, they’ll have to play out the final few seconds there. Hamburg are headed for zweite (Bundis)liga, but this is an embarrassing end.

Fans watching along on Twitter were disgusted by the fans’ actions, as well as calling out Mönchengladbach fans for holding up a homemade countdown clock, rubbing the relegation in the Hamburg fans’ faces.

“Excellent from the Hamburg fans there. Can’t get relegated if you burn the ground down,” one fan joked

“Hamburg are about to be relegated for the first time in their history and the Monchengladbach fans in the away end have a clock counting down to it. Absolute world class—housery…” one fan tweeted, not giving any slack to the away team.

“Hamburg going down with a bang,” a fan joked.

“Disgraceful that from the hamburg fans,” a fan tweeted, not seeming to find the situation funny. “Caused the match to be suspended in the stoppage.”