The riots on Woenselse Markt after the Netherlands – Turkey football match had nothing to do with the two competing teams in itself. Though the game provoked tensions between people with a Turkish background and people with a Syrian background. The police confirm this.
There was a lot of hooting in the centre of Eindhoven on Saturday evening after the match. Dozens of cars drove around the city honking their horns. The drivers were in a cheerful mood. But that was not because of the Dutch win.
Many honking cars had a red-white-green flag hanging from them. The Syrian flag. Syrians were probably celebrating the loss of Turkey.
Wolf greeting
The gesture for which player Demiral had been suspended by UEFA a few days earlier had reignited the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. The gesture, the ‘wolf salute’, represents Turkish nationalism. Kurds and other Turkish minorities take offense to this.
Syrians, some of whom belong to the Kurdish community, reportedly burned a Turkish flag in Eindhoven on Saturday in response to the wolf salute. This is what sources tell Studio040. This is said to have caused the fight later on Woenselse Markt.
“It indeed appears to be a confrontation between a group of people with a Syrian background and people with a Turkish background and is unrelated to the two competitors in itself (Netherlands-Turkey) of last Saturday’s football match”, a police spokesperson said. “What exactly led to the confrontation is difficult to determine in retrospect”.
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Bob
