Football
Associated Press 8y

Lens to have 24-hour alcohol ban for England vs. Wales for Euro 2016

French authorities plan to impose 24-hour alcohol bans in the centre of Lens when the city hosts Euro 2016 matches, including England's clash against neighbours Wales, and ticketless fans are being urged to stay away.

The alcohol ban will run for 24 hours in Lens from 6 a.m. on June 16 for the Group B fixture. Alcohol will be sold in the stadium and the official UEFA fan zone but not in bars and stores in the centre of the city which will host four matches of the tournament.

Northern Ireland has also qualified for the tournament so there will be a British police presence across France to assist their French counterparts in Lens and other Euro 2016 host cities.

Assistant chief constable Mark Roberts, who leads football policing in the United Kingdom, said other cities across France could restrict the sale of alcohol. But there are fears about Lens being overwhelmed by ticketless fans because the city has a population of 32,000 while the Stade Bollaert-Delelis has a capacity of 35,000.

"I think it will be decided on each of the game on its merit," Roberts said. "My understanding is that Lens will do that for each of the games just because being cognisant of the environment in Lens. It's a small stadium. It's a small fan zone. There isn't a great deal else to do beyond in Lens.

"I think the concern of the French is they wouldn't want tens of thousands of ticketless fans arriving in a venue that doesn't have the capacity to deal with them. So the message from them is if you don't have a ticket, don't travel."

Police delegations representing England, Wales and Northern Ireland will be in France for the tournament with up to 500,000 British football fans, around half of whom do not have tickets, expected to travel to the country.

British police are hoping to act as "cultural interpreters'' to prevent heavy-handed tactics against drunk and rowdy fans who may not cause serious trouble.

Another potential flashpoint is England's fixture against Russia in Marseille, a city that saw ugly clashes between home supporters and riot police at the 1998 World Cup.

England and Wales were each allocated 9,000 tickets for the game, but there were more than 20,000 applications.

In total around 250,000 UK supporters have tickets, but it is expected that double that number of fans will travel to France.

Currently 1,841 England fans and 86 Wales supporters are under banning orders that apply from May 31 to July 11 and mean they must hand in their passports to police.

An operation covering 29 UK ports with officers from 19 police forces will launch on June 6, with specially trained "spotters'' to detect hooligans trying to sneak out of the country.

Roberts warned that the banning orders are no guarantee against trouble.

He said: "Some of the people who have drunk to excess and behaved in an anti-social manner are not known to the police. They are not people who we have on the periphery or the radar as saying these people will cause trouble at football. They don't have previous convictions sometimes in any matter, let alone football.

"We've got to be aware that even if you have a banning order operation that doesn't entirely guarantee that you won't have problems. And if we have up to 500,000 people travelling, it being summer they will no doubt drink, they will be in large groups, and we need to be aware that there may be potential trouble.''

He also cautioned against allowing "keyboard warriors'' to stir up trouble on social media ahead of the Russia game.

"Clearly we know there's a history there,'' he said. "I think we have moved a long way even since that tournament [1998 World Cup] in terms of the behaviour of English supporters abroad. It would be dangerous to make assumptions that it will be a repeat of anything that's gone before.

"It's important to be cautious about the keyboard warriors stoking this up in advance of it because these things can get a life of their own.''

Plans are in place to fast-track banning orders for fans who fall foul of the law, to stop them returning to France for matches in the later stages.

Roberts cited the example of Chelsea fans who were filmed racially abusing a commuter on the Paris Metro.

He said: "It's entirely conceivable that we will get an incident such as the one with the Chelsea fans, when they played Paris Saint-Germain, on the tube, where something will be captured on social media.

"Obviously there will be an expectation for us to take action. This is France, we do not have jurisdiction in France, we cannot arrest people, we cannot use any sort of power on people.

"Our expectation would be if people are caught acting in that manner, of if there was some large-scale disorder, we would want to be in a position to take action in seeking a banning order and preferably as soon as this person came back.''

The tournament is being carried out amid a severe terror threat, and French authorities have extended a state of emergency until the end of the event.

Roberts said fans need to be aware that they will see military at transport hubs and paramilitary-style police.

"For the French it's going to be a massive security operation. It was described to us [on Monday] as a extraordinary scale of operation.

"We've got to accept that France has got its own policing style, it's a different country, so it's really for our supporters to be aware of that and to be respectful of the country that they're in and allow the French police to concentrate on keeping them safe.

"I don't think it's helpful to speculate on the policing style, I'm sure it will be as appropriate as it needs to be to the situation''

Concerns have been raised by French authorities that security is not tight enough at the Stade de France after fans were able to get pyrotechnics and glass bottles into the ground.

Roberts added: "Any issues like that at a major event in France are always going to cause concerns. The consolation I think we can take is that this in effect was a test event for the systems they are going to have in place in the Euros.

"It is a concern but the solace is it's happened before the tournament and there is now the opportunity to take appropriate remedial actions.''

Information from the Press Association was used in this report

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