Uefa plan 'sports police' By Oliver Brown Telegraph 07/04/2007
Uefa are to establish a pan-European police unit to restore order at major matches, amid rising alarm at the violent clashes involving English supporters. As inquests continued into the fighting that scarred Manchester United and Tottenham's games this week, both clubs have directed the blame squarely at the heavy-handedness of police responses in Rome and Seville. Last night Uefa said it was a priority to ensure a "better attitude" and "greater co-operation" between national police authorities to tackle the upsurge in crowd trouble. The European governing body's solution is to host a 'round table' of police chiefs before the start of next season, with the aim of creating a cross-border force that applies a clearer form of zero tolerance on football violence. "We have been seriously concerned about the law and order situation around European games for the last six months," a senior Uefa source told The Daily Telegraph. "We are looking to create a type of European sports police, a way of dealing systematically with the problem. We need cool heads. First of all, we cannot tolerate violence in any form off the pitch, but we also have to understand the mechanics of it." This cross-border thinking has already received the backing of Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission. The enhanced police operation is likely to be in place by the start of next season. English fans have been drawn into three major confrontations with foreign police this season - there was also unrest at Manchester United's away game against Lille - and the head of security for the city of Rome yesterday claimed to have video evidence that United fans had sparked Wednesday's ugly scenes in the Stadio Olimpico. The Uefa source added: "It is over the travelling fans that there are concerns over safety, because it is easier to cause trouble abroad than in England. But you have to take note of some reports in the Italian press after the incidents in Rome. One point is the drinking habits of English fans, which do shock many southern Europeans." Tottenham last night strenuously denied any suggestion that their support had instigated the trouble in Seville, in which at least six were injured, and some disabled fans targeted. Two club stewards were also injured. The club claim that Spanish police acted excessively and indiscriminately as they tried to force fans back into the lower stand of their enclosure. "We really need to get to the bottom of just what the police were trying to do when they entered those segregation lines," Tottenham's club secretary, John Alexander, said. "We are distressed to hear about incidents at a time when our supporters were showing no aggression whatsoever." Meanwhile, officials from Chelsea will use their match against Tottenham today to discuss events in Seville with their counterparts from White Hart Lane ahead of their own trip to Spain next week to play Valencia. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml;jsessionid=PXI0STXJGFMHJQFIQMFCF FWAVCBQYIV0?xml=/sport/2007/04/07/sfntot07.xml [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Please use [email protected] for general discussion. To unsubscribe send a blank message (from the email account in question) to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Join as a full member of IMUSA today: http://www.imusa.org/join.htm Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/imusa/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/imusa/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
