German police brace for 80,000 England fans

Thousands of English football fans cheer while watching the football match between England and Ecuador in Stuttgart on June 25. German police have said they were expecting 80,000 England fans in Gelsenkirchen for the World Cup quarter final against Portugal and would deploy reinforcements to prevent violence.

German police have said they were expecting 80,000 England fans in Gelsenkirchen for the World Cup quarter final against Portugal and would deploy reinforcements to prevent violence.

"There is certainly the potential for problems," said police operations commander Peter Honnef on Thursday.

He said English and Portuguese policemen have been brought in to help their German colleagues, and more than 100 known English trouble-makers have been banned from Gelsenkirchen in western Germany ahead of Saturday's match.

Honnef said the police would carry out checks at airports, stations and nearby border points but believed there was a bigger risk of drunken brawls than organised hooliganism.

"Our problem is not going to be hooligans but drunk people who respond violently when provoked," he told reporters.

Honnef said police would lock up trouble-makers and hold them in about 100 cells that have been set aside in Gelsenkirchen and the nearby city of Bochum.

German police have praised the conduct of England's traditionally unruly fans at this World Cup, but locked up more than 300 last weekend in Stuttgart where England played Ecuador.

Trouble flared a day ahead of the match when England fans traded insults with German fans who were watching the home nation's clash with Sweden on Saturday.

They threw tables and beer bottles at each other and at riot police who intervened.

A German court on Thursday handed one of the England fans involved in the Stuttgart violence a five-month suspended prison sentence.

Police said Gelsenkirchen could see a repeat as many of the fans were expected to arrive on Friday when Germany plays Argentina in Berlin in what promises to be the biggest match of the tournament so far.