A cup that will run over

Spectator, The, Jan 24, 1998 by Farrell, Nicholas

Nicholas Farrell gives early warning of Anglo-French trouble at the World Cup this summer - between fans and governments

THE FLASHPOINT will be Lens, a hitherto unknown small town in northern France, on the night of Friday 26 June - the day England play their crucial third and final World Cup group qualifying game against fancied Colombia. Unlike Toulouse and Marseilles where England play their first two games, Lens is only 20 miles from Lille, which is on the Eurostar line, just two and a quarter hours from Waterloo; it is also within easy reach of Calais. So thousands and thousands of England fans will pour across the Channel for the game. But thanks to the French organisers most of them will not have tickets. There will be plenty of black-market tickets around but those fans who cannot find one will be left to roam the streets disgruntled, looking for something other than football to quench their passion and staunch their frustration. The Football Association has now belatedly told the French of its `considerable concern'. But it is powerless to do anything except wring its hands.

It did not have to be this way. It is the fault of the French organisers of the tournament and our own Football Association for not complaining until it was too late. The French World Cup organising committee, chaired by Michel Platini, the former French international, has allocated the English Football Association a paltry 3,340 tickets out of a total 41,732, in line with its decision to allocate the 32 participating nations' football associations just 8 per cent of tickets each per game. These tickets went on sale this month. But several times more than 3,000-odd England fans are bound to turn up in Lens on 26 June.

Meanwhile, the French have given themselves 60 per cent of the total 2.5 million tickets - average price 25-35 - to the 64 games. Their tickets went on sale last year and a very large proportion, especially for games not involving the French side, has already ended up in the hands of touts. A further 12 per cent are to go to sponsors and 8 per cent to the 17 tour operators licensed by the organisers to run World Cup package deals, some of which cost a staggering 4,200 per person.

Fans with black-market tickets will find themselves in the midst not of the England contingent but of the enemy - in the case of Lens the French and the Colombian supporters - always a source of trouble. The same will be true of the hundreds of others who buy tickets from the licensed tour operators. It was reported in the British press last weekend that one American operator had somehow managed to get hold of more than 30,000 tickets, from which he stands to make a 10 million profit. Again there will be absolutely no control over where these ticket-holders will end up inside a stadium.

Non-segregation of fans is a recipe for disaster. It caused the violence in Rome last October when England played Italy in the game which decided who would be top of their World Cup qualifying group. The violence of the fans was equalled by that of the police. Television pictures showed the police baton-charging the fans and beating them up, something never seen these days at English football grounds. British police have learned the hard way. The French police, like their Italian counterparts, go in very hard when trouble starts, but heavyhanded policing often provokes more trouble than it prevents, especially when the English and the French are pitted against each other. Yet it seems the French police intend to go in harder than ever this time. Last week the French government announced plans to post magistrates inside stadiums to dispense instant justice within 48 hours of an offence, with punishments of a year in prison for drunkenness or throwing missiles. Even the army will be on standby. But at Euro 96 it was a low-profile approach by police which helped ensure that there was little trouble.

For his part, the Socialist mayor of Lens, Andre Deletis, has agreed to erect three giant television screens in his town as his contribution to the attempt to keep the peace between the invading hordes. He said recently, 'I hope with all my heart that the English come without their hooligans.' But the mayor's giant screens will encourage more people to travel to Lens, not fewer. They will say to themselves that if they don't get a blackmarket ticket outside the ground they can always go and watch the game on the big screen.

Wistfully, a spokesman at the mairie told me this week, `We are very, very happy to have the English playing the Colombians here . . We are not afraid of your army.' He sent me a charming press release, in English, full of pride that his obscure town was on the map at last. `Between Lens and football, a passion has been brewing for nearly one century,' began the release. The stadium had been fitted, it said, `with video surveillance cameras so as to prevent any incidents amongst fans'. How sweet. Do these Frenchmen not realise what they are letting their town in for? The French World Cup organising committee has also been doing its bit. It said last week that it would be providing England fans with free face-painting facilities and shuttle buses to `encourage a carnival atmosphere'. More like free warpaint.