Prisoners in the Vinicius Junior case are members of the crowd responsible for two murders – 05/24/2023 – Sport

In Spain, Atlético de Madrid fans are affectionately called colchoneros. This is a joke because the uniform with red and white vertical stripes is similar to the fabric used in the lining of mattresses in the beginning of the last century.

Not every colchonero, of course, is part of an organized fan base, but three of the four fans arrested on Tuesday (23) by the Madrid police are affiliated with the fearsome Frente Atlético (FA), a Nazi-inspired association responsible for at least two deaths since which was created in 1982. After the second murder, in 2014, Atlético de Madrid expelled fans from its premises and banned flags associated with the FA in the Vicente Calderón stadium.

The four prisoners are involved in the placement, in January of this year, of a dark doll with the uniform of Vinicius Junior hanging from a bridge in the capital, as if he were hanged. At the top, there was a red banner where you could read “Madrid hates Real”. Vinicius Junior is a striker for Real Madrid, with whom Atlético would play that night.

On the same day, to prove that bad taste is not limited to the radical colchoneros, members of Ultras Sur —also of the extreme right, but Real Madrid fans— pasted on the poles near the stadium photos of Anne Frank dressed in the FA T-shirt , with the words “Ana Frank is from Atlético”.

The FA was created by members of the Frente de la Juventud, the teenage arm of the far-right party Forza Nueva —born in 1976 to keep alive the policy of Francisco Franco, Spain’s fascist dictator for 36 years and who had died in the year previous.

Vicente Calderón, then president of Atletico de Madrid, welcomed the group financially and administratively. In 1982, he vetoed the suggestion that the name be Brigata Rossibianca, after Italian military inspiration. The boys from Frente de la Juventud then chose Frente Atlético.

The FA soon became known for its members’ paramilitary aesthetics and display of far-right symbols. Red berets, leather jackets and military clothing characterized his image. This association strengthened in the late 1980s, coinciding with the appearance of the first shaven-headed neo-Nazis on the streets of Madrid.

From then on, neo-Nazi emblems, such as the SS skull or the Celtic cross, became common in the group’s material. The FA was also notable for pioneering the use of smoke canisters in stadiums and for engaging in brawls with supporters across the country.

In the hands of neo-Nazis from the 1990s, violence increased. In 1998, one of these neo-Nazis was sentenced to 17 years for stabbing a 28-year-old Real Sociedad fan to death outside Atlético’s stadium —then renamed Vicente Calderón stadium after the manager’s death in 1987. A 17-year-old Real Club Celta supporter received 100 stitches on his head after being attacked.

The next scandal, in November 2014, was the murder of 41-year-old Deportivo de la Coruña fan Francisco “Jimmy” Taboada. A member of a violent rival supporter, identified with the extreme left, Jimmy was hit in the head with an iron bar, which caused traumatic brain injury, and thrown into the Manzanares river, which runs through the capital and on whose bank the Atlético stadium was built.

Three days later, Atlético de Madrid kicked the FA out of their stands. The club severed all relations with the fans and said it would put “all means at its disposal to prevent the display of flags or other distinctive elements of the said group inside the Vicente Calderón stadium”.

The expulsion did not divert the FA from its hateful fundamentals. Last year, for example, Atlético de Madrid had to leave 5,000 seats vacant in a Champions League quarter-final match against Manchester City. The punishment was because of Nazi chants by members of the FA in the first leg.

As for the three fans arrested —and already released— in Valencia, where Vinicius Junior was attacked by the fans of the city’s team with racist insults and mime, it is not known if they are part of any organization.

But Valencia CF has its own Nazi club called Yomus. Created in 1983, a year after the FA, the crowd was also taken over by Nazi-fascists at the turn of the 1980s to the 1990s. There is no record of murders committed by its members, but the long history of fights, stabbings and Nazi chants meant that Valencia expelled Yomus from its premises in 2019.