BfV intel behind cancellation of German football friendly
When Hanover canceled the Germany Netherlands' football friendly on Tuesday night, talk began almost immediately of an "overly-nervous" police reaction. That was not the case at all, says Bild, the leading German daily newspaper. The BfV, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, had received a direct warning from a "foreign" intel agency setting out the details of a series of planned attacks in the stadium and the city centre that "were so shocking the authorities had no choice but to call off the match". Once more, the prime target of the attackers was likely a head of state, given Angela Merkel's expected attendance at the match.



A football friendly between Germany and Holland in the city of Hanover was cancelled 91 minutes before kick-off after police received “concrete information” of a terror attack in the stadium.

Angela Merkel and other leading politicians were due to attend the match on Tuesday, which had been advertised as a gesture of solidarity towards the victims of the Paris attacks.

At a press conference in Hanover, the German interior minister, Thomas de Maizière, said that the decision to call off the match was made after “an increase in tip-offs in the early evening”, but refused to comment further on the source and extent of the threat. However, some German media said the warning had come from a foreign intelligence agency.

“It was an extremely tough decision to cancel the match, which was made after many pieces of information indicated a concrete threat,” De Maizière said.

The interior minister for Lower Saxony, Boris Pistorius, told the same press conference that no arrests had been made and he could not confirm a report in a local newspaper that explosives had been found in an ambulance outside the stadium.

A concert to be given by the funk musician Maceo Parker at the Hanover cultural centre Pavillon was also cancelled and the crowd of 900 were sent home.

One football fan told the TV channel N24 said he was disappointed, as the match had meant to send a message of solidarity to Parisians. “We were supposed to be showing that we wouldn’t let anyone stop us from doing what we normally do, even if I had a nervous feeling in my stomach as I made my way here, especially after what happened in the stadium on Friday during the France-Germany friendly,” he said.

In the centre of Hanover, demonstrators gathered with French flags and candles, along with a pianist who was playing John Lennon’s Imagine, to show their support for the French. The demonstration was also asked to disperse.

Earlier, Hanover’s police chief, Volker Kluwe, said the situation had “put the entire city under threat”. When heavily armed police evacuated the stadium, fans left in an orderly fashion and there were no reports of panic. The evacuation zone was marked with a security banner reading: “Careful, life-threatening situation”.

The German national team had not entered the stadium when the match was cancelled and was diverted by police to an unknown location. The team’s spokesman, Jens Gritnner, said an hour after the cancellation that the team had been taken to a “secure place”. The Dutch players, who had been on their way to the stadium when the game was called off, were taken back to their hotel.

According to the Dutch daily Volkskrant, the players were “in a state of shock”, when the bus was forced to turn around and they were immediately informed why. The players were told not to talk to the media.

Two Dutch ministers – the sports minister, Edith Schippers, and the defence minister, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert – were already in the stadium and were asked to leave. They were only informed later about the reasons for the cancellation.

The police presence at the match was larger than usual, following the Paris attacks and the city was patrolled by police armed with automatic weapons.

The Germany-Holland friendly had been arranged as a last-minute event on Sunday to send a message of solidarity by Germany’s football association, the DFB. After the cancellation was announced, several limousines with flashing blue lights were seen leaving the stadium. It was not clear who was in them.

Earlier on Tuesday afternoon, De Maizière told a press conference that the security situation in Germany was critical and the chances of an attack on German soil “very high”.

Seven people were arrested in the western city of Aachen on suspicion of having been involved in organising the Paris attacks, but the two women and five men were later released without charge.