Police stage large-scale drill simulating football match security in Frankfurt an der Oder

About 550 police officers took part in a large-scale exercise across Frankfurt an der Oder on Tuesday, simulating the security operation that typically surrounds a football match day. The drill tested how officers would manage crowds of fans from their arrival at the train station through to the stadium entrance.

A spokeswoman for the federal police said the exercise, built around what organisers called a "football scenario," had been carried out successfully. She said one of the main goals was to give younger officers practical experience in handling the kind of situations that can arise around matches, even though many veteran officers still find such operations demanding.

The scenario began at and inside the city's train station, the usual arrival point for visiting fans on match days. From there, officers moved through the Anger, a central square in Frankfurt an der Oder, before continuing on to the Stadion der Freundschaft, the local football stadium.

Rather than bringing in outside volunteers, officers themselves played the role of supporters for the purposes of the test, walking the route that real fans would take and allowing colleagues to rehearse crowd management, communication and coordination along the way.

The exercise drew on a range of resources beyond officers on foot. Pyrotechnics were set off to mimic the kind of flares or smoke sometimes used by fan groups at matches, giving participating officers a chance to practice responding to such incidents in a controlled setting. Drones were deployed overhead to give commanders an aerial view of crowd movement through the city.

A mounted unit of roughly eight horses also took part, a presence regularly used by German police forces to help manage or disperse large crowds outside stadiums. The combination of ground officers, aerial surveillance and mounted support was meant to replicate the layered approach police typically use on actual match days.

Because of the scale of the operation, the area around the stadium was closed off entirely for much of the day. A spokeswoman for the city administration said in advance of the exercise that the stadium grounds would be completely shut off between 7am and 4pm while the drill was under way, a measure intended to keep the test realistic and to avoid any disruption to the public during the live run-through.

City officials had outlined the planned route before the exercise took place, describing how the operation would begin at the train station before police units advanced toward the Anger and then on to the stadium itself. That sequence mirrors the path authorities say fans commonly take on days when matches are held in the city, making it a useful template for testing how different units communicate and hand off responsibilities as a crowd moves through a built-up urban area.

Large-scale drills of this kind are periodically held by police forces in towns with football clubs, allowing different units, including federal police who are typically responsible for train stations and rail-related security, to coordinate with local city police and other emergency services. Such exercises are generally used to identify gaps in planning, test communication systems between units, and give newer officers hands-on exposure to crowd scenarios that can otherwise take years of real match-day experience to encounter.

No incidents were reported during Tuesday's exercise in Frankfurt an der Oder, and police did not immediately indicate whether further joint drills of this scale are planned in the city.