Fans provoke crisis meeting

Press, 17 June 1988, Page 1

Fans provoke crisis meeting

By

PETER O’HARA,

NZPA correspondent London English hooligans have dragged their national sport and country so deep into disrepute at the European soccer championships in West Germany that the Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, will hold a crisis meeting today. Street fights between hundreds of English and Continental fans before a match in Dusseldorf yesterday led to calls for the England team to withdraw from the championships and return home to redeem the nation’s name. The British Sports Minister, Mr Colin Moynihan, who will meet Mrs Thatcher today, called for stern measures to control hooligans because of the violence in West Germany. The Home Secretary, Mr Douglas Hurd, will also be at today’s meeting. Mr Moynihan said the Home Office would have suggestions for new measures. “We have got to sit down and put together a tough package of measures. That means tough sentencing ... a tough line taken by policing authorities to make sure these hooligans are properly put away, and sentencing to deter other people.” Mr Moynihan said it was not for the Government to suggest England withdrew from the tournament. But he said the team could show by withdrawing that it did not want to be associated with the “cancer” of hooliganism. Other members of Parliament from the Left and Right called more directly for England to quit the championships and one said the rioting fans held in West German jails should be returned home in cattle trucks. “The Times” newspaper said Britain was "being viewed worldwide as little more than a zoo of dangerous animals which are released upon innocent foreign cities by a Government which has so far shown itself incapable, or unwilling, to tackle the crisis head-on.” •-

Matches, page 24.