Gridlocked Frankfurt Is No Place to Be

The German police have dropped the ball again, and Frankfurt is a mess once more.

A few weeks ago, this city buckled while the English fans ran rampant, and yesterday the police here faltered while a student protest was allowed to cripple all traffic -- pedestrian, public transport and automobiles -- with fans trying to get to the stadium for the Netherlands-Argentina game. It was an utter and complete joke and appalling to watch.

Students are irate that they have to pay 500 euros a semester for college here, so they sat in the street and stood in front of trams and subway cars, and the German police, armed as can be, sat back and watched it all. They hovered above in helicopters and closed many streets, but allowed the demonstration to continue in precisely the location where it could derail most everything taking place on match day.

There were no media shuttles to the game because the buses could not get through, and at one point everyone inside the huge central train station was forced to remain inside, but at the same time almost none of the various trains were actually leaving the station. It took well over two hours to get to the stadium. After the media bus was stopped, a few of us tried taxis, but none were allowed near the station. Finally, we got on an S-Bahn train to the stadium, which was loaded to capacity, then had to be unloaded when someone blocked the tracks.

Eventually one of the underground trains did make its way to Commerzbank Arena, but no one could figure out the apathetic response of the police in what should be an area of heightened security. Rather than turn over a few streets to these slackers, or corral them in some quarter, police allowed them to go anywhere they pleased.

I've definitely had enough of Frankfurt, and will shed no tears about not coming back. Probably my least favorite city thus far by a landslide.

-- Jason La Canfora

Wanted: Togo Fans

Togo's players say that one of the reasons for their poor performance at the World Cup -- apart from the lengthy dispute over pay and having their coach walk out and then return -- is that they miss their fans.

South Korean and Swiss fans packed the stadiums for the first two matches, squeezing fans of the Sparrow Hawks into a tiny corner. Tomorrow's game against France is likely to be the same.

"We have always played in front of supporters. And it is difficult when they are not there," forward Emmanuel Adebayor said. "If there are only 200 Togolese fans in a stadium of 60,000, of course it hurts."

Some of Togo's supporters, led by the charismatic Mama Togo, were stranded in the capital Lome after German authorities refused to grant them visas on the grounds they had no bank guarantees. Many of the fans don't have regular jobs or bank accounts.

"We missed the 12th person on our team," Adebayor said.

-- From News Services