A German man has been arrested by police after he was caught scaling Borussia Dortmund's stadium on Saturday night during Germany's Euro 2024 clash with Denmark.
The match was full of incident and was suspended in the first half due to a lightning storm in the area, however, the storm turned out to be the least of the German police's worries.
At the start of the second half, a masked man was seen walking on the beams inside the stadium's roof above the stands below at Signal Iduna Park.
🚨🚨| BREAKING: A 21-year-old man has been arrested after climbing onto the roof during Germany vs Denmark at Euro2024.
The Game was briefly halted after the players noticed. Nobody knew how he got to the Roof of the stadium. pic.twitter.com/sfRMdBpYIT
— Football Latest (@footballatest_) June 30, 2024
While fans below urged the man to come down, he stayed up there until long after the final whistle when the police eventually held him at gunpoint to force him to come down, amid fears of what his motives were for being there in the first place.
He has since been arrested and questioned by police but after they found no dangerous objects in his possession and have uncovered no malicious motives, he has been released.
Police release statement after fan is arrested for for climbing Borussia Dortmund's stadium
On Sunday, the police released the following statement in relation to the incident:
“At no point was there any danger to other people in the stadium and we are currently ruling out a political motivation.
“Initial investigations revealed that the man had already wanted to take photos of prominent buildings at great heights in Herne in April 2022 and in Ulm in May 2024.
“During questioning by the police on Sunday night, the man from Osnabruck stated that he only wanted to take ‘good photos'.”
Despite his intentions being harmless, there are still understandable concerns about how he was able to get up to those heights in the first place. UEFA have since released their own statement stating that security measures will now be ‘reviewed in all host venues' and reassured supporters that fan safety is their ‘ultimate priority.'
They added: “UEFA would like to commend the police, stadium and local authorities for their co-operation in the incident last night in Dortmund.”