Football fans fill Salzburg as police prepare for Super Cup

Football supporters from Paris Saint Germain and Aston Villa are filling Salzburg city centre ahead of Wednesday’s UEFA Super Cup, ORF reports. Paris fans have gathered near Hotel Pitter, where the French team is staying.

The match between Champions League winners Paris Saint Germain and Europa League winners Aston Villa of Birmingham is expected to draw 30,000 spectators to the stadium in Kleßheim in Wals-Siezenheim. Several thousand more fans are following the game in separate fan zones at Kapitelplatz, Alter Markt and a public viewing area at Residenzplatz.

Salzburg police have deployed all available personnel from the state traffic department, operations unit, rapid intervention group, standby unit, Cobra special unit and air police. Helicopter surveillance is being supported by drones.

The operations centre at the state police directorate on Alpenstraße is receiving live images from an unspecified number of cameras to support rapid decisions. Police director Bernhard Rausch said authorities did not currently consider the match a high risk game, but that there was a generally high abstract terror threat despite no specific indications of an imminent incident.

Police are also on standby to counter drones. Officers from Carinthia, Tyrol, Upper Austria, Lower Austria and Vienna’s WEGA emergency unit are supporting the Salzburg operation. Several hundred officers are deployed in total, but police have not disclosed the exact number for tactical reasons.