Wolfgang Rauchegger, police commander for the local province of Carinthia, confirmed there were some "skirmishes" and "fist fights" in separate locations around the city and that 157 people had been arrested.

The majority of those detained were rounded up after disturbances in the city centre, with 140 of those arrested coming from a group of German fans who were chanting Nazi slogans, and who included known hooligans.

Overall, 143 German people were detained, one Slovenian, two Austrians and 10 Poles, while two police offers were injured - one because of a traffic accident and another from a missile that was thrown.

"Unfortunately, as we expected there were some supporters who came here as trouble makers," Rauchegger told a press conference today.

Around 80,000 football fans were in Klagenfurt for the match, which Germany won 2-0.

"The day was very peaceful, in the evening however around 140 German supporters were planning to commit crimes, but our liaison officers knew about that, informed us and we surrounded them and arrested them," Rauchegger added.

"There were 157 arrests, 140 were from this group of German violent supporters, we had six offences for obstructing police and for civil disorder, while there were also some breaches of public peace and cases of administrative offences.

"Two of the people were sent to prison and four people are still being interrogated."

Regarding the main group of German fans who were arrested, Rauchegger said: "First it was smaller groups that had gathered, then they became bigger, chanted Nazi slogans and our liaison offers told us that the situation could be escalating.

"This group was also formed of well-known trouble-makers and the liaison offers expected that there was a high risk of violent actions by this group, and this is why we surrounded the group and detained them."

Rauchegger confirmed that among the arrests were four people who were recorded in their database of violent supporters.

"How they got into Austria I don't know, I can't answer that. Maybe they came in before we actually introduced the border controls," he said.

Despite the high number of arrests, Klagenfurt mayor Harald Scheucher felt the police authorities had done well to prevent the disturbances escalating into something more serious.

"From my point of view, the so-called high-risk match between Germany and Poland went smoothly, and this a very positive signal for the next two matches that will be played in Klagenfurt," he said.

Looking ahead to the next match, which sees Germany take on Croatia on Thursday, Rauchegger is confident they will again be able to deal with any crowd problems that may arise.

"What does that teach us for our next match between Germany and Croatia? Well, that we are very well prepared and that our philosophy and strategy is the right one," he said.

During a separate press conference in Vienna, a spokesman for UEFA insisted that police were well prepared in all the host cities of Euro 2008.

"We have gone through all kinds of scenarios with Swiss and Austrian police, with the help of European police forces around the continent," he said.

"There is no specific plan for every match. We think the overall concept works well.

"Sensitive matches are dotted around the map of Austria and Switzerland, you can turn anything into a sensitive match if you think twice about it.

"We are not particularly worried about a single episode. We have a global concept we apply, match by match and city by city. It is well rehearsed and we hope also for every match it will work."