Valentijn Driessen Calls for Ban on Away Supporters After Fireworks Chaos

Valentijn Driessen has launched a blistering attack on the Feyenoord fans who turned SC Cambuur’s stadium into a fireworks zone on Sunday, calling for an outright ban on away supporters in Dutch football.

The match in Leeuwarden had barely settled when chaos erupted. After just 12 minutes, referee and officials halted play as a torrent of fireworks exploded from the away end in the South Stand. Cambuur later revealed it was not a brief flare-up: fireworks were also aimed toward the pitch and into surrounding sections of the ground.

The human cost is now painfully clear. In an official statement, Cambuur confirmed that five supporters were injured and “are not doing well”. The club reported burns, hearing damage and eye injuries among those hurt. “It goes without saying that all care and attention are focused on these injured supporters and everyone at the club is enormously sympathetic,” the statement read.

For Driessen, this went far beyond mindless fan behaviour.

“They are simply criminals, of course,” the De Telegraaf football editor said, openly condemning the Feyenoord contingent responsible. “It was an organised action. I happened to have contact with someone, and he said it was for fun. If this is what you get your pleasure from, you're not right in the head.”

That fury feeds into a demand he has been making for years: shut the doors to away fans.

“I argue for it every time: stop with away supporters. Then you get rid of a whole lot of trouble,” he insisted. He pointed to the recent Feyenoord v Ajax clash as his example. “Feyenoord v Ajax is played on a Saturday evening. And that is possible, because there are no Ajax supporters. Lovely, isn't it?”

One question in particular leaves him incredulous: how did so many pyrotechnics get into the Cambuur stadium in the first place?

The away section was awash with fireworks and flares, a haul that should never have made it through standard checks. “If you then clear the place out, you might be bringing all sorts of misery on yourself. The mayor will naturally have taken that into consideration. Because it would have been very normal to clear out that section,” Driessen argued, suggesting local authorities faced a grim dilemma between immediate evacuation and the risk of escalation.

Attention now turns to Feyenoord’s own responsibility. For Driessen, the club cannot simply issue a statement and move on.

“I think Feyenoord really need to look carefully at who was there,” he said. Under normal circumstances, away supporters are easier to track. “Normally speaking that is not a problem, because you have gold club card holders or something like that.”

This time, though, the picture looked very different. The away end was “absolutely packed”, he noted, and that raises suspicions. “So I think a great many slipped through the net. Those were the troublemakers responsible for those horrific scenes.”

The KNVB now faces a familiar but sharpened question: is Dutch football finally ready to sacrifice away support to stop nights like this from becoming the norm?