POLISH football fans intent on disrupting this summer’s World Cup with organised fights are planning to establish a “hooligan league” which will be headed by the most violent thugs.

The Polish fans, many of whom will be armed with knives, axes and 3ft truncheons, are preparing for battles with fans from rival countries, including England, throughout the five weeks of the tournament in Germany.

They say they will be seeking “pre-arranged fights” with travelling England fans because of their reputation as “the best of the worst”. One group of Polish hooligans has warned that if the English “ignore invitations to fight, they will be attacked anyway”.

The extent of the violence — often with fascist overtones — now commonplace in Polish football is understood by both German and British police. But little is known about the identities of many of the eastern European gangs who talk of turning Germany into a “battleground”.

The rise in football violence follows a wave of extreme right-wing and vehemently anti-semitic political discourse in the former communist country. Within the Polish parliament there are politicians who openly praise fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Hard-core fascist and anti-semitic publications are sold on newsstands.

Rafal Pankowski, who organises Never Again, a Warsaw-based human rights group, said: “The level of violence and its links to fascist and racist groups is a great concern to us. We are very worried this will be exported to Germany for the World Cup.”

Polish hooligans interviewed about their plans boast that they will be able to slip across the border into Germany without being detected. They talk of night-time raids on the campsites where many of England’s 80,000 to 100,000 travelling supporters expect to stay.

Although few of the 2,000-2,500 hard-core Polish hooligans have tickets for matches, they plan to organise fights away from stadiums where they will not be monitored by CCTV and a huge German police operation.

The shocking level of violence at Polish football matches is far worse than that seen during the dark days of the 1980s in Britain. Virtually every professional club has developed a fan base rooted in hooliganism. In Krakow eight fans have been stabbed to death in the past 12 months.

At a clash in Warsaw between Polonia and Legia a fortnight ago, more than 1,300 riot police armed with backpacks of CS gas and carrying rifles loaded with rubber bullets failed to contain a crowd of 3,000 fans.

Instead of keeping rival supporters apart after the game, the police shepherded them away from the football ground and into the city centre, where running battles followed.

Grzegorz Piatkowski, 29, a former trainee priest, fought alongside his fellow Legia Warsaw fans. “After every game there is fighting,” he explained. “It is part of the game, it is something we enjoy. It makes us all feel closer. We stand beside one another and we fight with our friends because it makes us stronger.”

Alongside Piatkowski was Marek, 29, a father of a year-old child. “We will come together for our national cause,” he said of the World Cup. “We think only of beating the ‘hools’ from Germany first — because we hate them — and the ones from England because they have the reputation of being the best hools, because they invented it. If we beat them we will be considered the best.”

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