Banks promises action as Rome forces football violence back on the agenda
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Your support makes all the difference.After Rome, the FA fears of further violence at the World Cup. While Tony Banks promised a clampdown on hooligans and "unofficial" ticket agents, Ian Burrell says fans are already planning their trips to France. Despite evidence that many English fans were the innocent victims of thuggish Italian policing at Saturday's match in Rome, the violence has forced football hooliganism back on to the political agenda.
Tony Banks, the sports minister, said yesterday that the courts were not doing enough to stop convicted thugs travelling abroad. "Officials ... are now reviewing the scheme. Because quite clearly, if we are not using the powers that we have to stop these people travelling then frankly we are not doing our job properly," he said.
Earlier Mr Banks said that, although he blamed Italian fans for starting the violence, he was concerned at the role of what he called "so-called responsible" ticket agencies which sold English fans tickets obtained from Italian sources. "We are going to have look very carefully at whether this should be permitted," he said.
Keith Prowse International, which sold packages for the game to 950 England fans, said it supplied British and Italian police with the names and addresses of all the supporters."We have done nothing wrong. In fact, the Italian authorities even told us how well we had done everything," it said.
France is the next potential battle zone and yesterday travel companies reported an immediate demand for packages to the finals in the summer.
Richard Brierly, chief executive of the Association of British Tour Operators to France, said: "I would have thought all operators interested in offering the package will look at any [ticketing] source they can provided it is legal and above board." Yesterday the Italian judicial authorities were dealing with 31 English fans arrested at the weekend. Andrew Jordan, 38, a manager, from St Albans, Hertfordshire; Fernando Puertolano, 31, a psychiatric nurse from Brentwood, Essex; and Nigel Andrews, 39, from Cradley Heath, West Midlands admitted knocking a policeman unconscious and received eight-month suspended jail sentences. The same sentence was imposed on Patrick Brogan, 30, of Aldershot, Hampshire, who admitted head- butting a policeman. In Ireland yesterday, Stephen Smith, 31, from Scunthorpe, was banned from the country after admitting throwing seats at Irish fans when England played in Dublin in 1995.
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