South Africa ready for the hooligans, says Danny Jordaan 08/09/2009 |
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Danny Jordaan, the chief executive officer of South Africa 2010, admitted to being shocked and saddened by the images of fan violence at the West Ham v Millwall game on Aug 25 but is confident that his team "have the capacity and capability to deal proactively with these issues".
The South African police force will deploy 41,000 officers for the tournament, with the military on stand-by, and have tapped into military intelligence and British anti-hooligan expertise to ensure they are prepared for any trouble.
Hooligans arrested in or around the ground will be processed swiftly and either be deported or sentenced to serve time in South African prisons.
Over £50 million has been spent on equipment to ensure the police are ready and they will have unmanned aircraft and helicopters available for surveillance and 10 water cannons and state-of-the-art mobile body armour to help with crowd control.
There have been serious concerns that the extensive violence in and around Upton Park heralded a resurgence in football violence, especially regarding supporters of the national team.
"It came as a shock," Jordaan said. "You saw the images and pictures from that game with great sadness because English football has come such a long way in recent years. You go back to the clashes in Marseille at the World Cup in 1998 and the problems at Euro 2000 for the last time there were serious problems.
"From then on the Football Association and the English clubs have done extremely well, so it is disappointing to see this problem rear its head again.
The organisers of the World Cup are working hard to ensure they are not targeted by hooligans and Jordaan confirmed that his team are already working with the FA, the various police forces and Interpol to make sure known hooligans are prevented from travelling.
"With South Africa being a long-haul destination, it should be easier for us to identify known transgressors and hooligans before they leave or as they arrive," he said.
"As you saw with the West Ham situation, the cameras clearly showed the identity of the culprits. There is a lot of information out there that can help us. We will certainly have our police and the police in the UK working together to ensure it is a good and pleasurable tournament for all fans."
Jordaan wants to draw on the security procedures adopted by the Germans during the largely trouble-free 2006 World Cup and cited the way in which the police had quelled a potential serious incident in Cologne during the South African delegation's visit.
"We are very well prepared and have watched how the organisers of the World Cup in Germany dealt with trouble.
We were right there when there was difficulty between England and Germany fans in Cologne. I was right there in the train station with our security and police advisers and saw how that was dealt with."
England could qualify for the World Cup finals if they beat Croatia on Wednesday and the Jordaan is keen to emphasise that, for all the negative associations with England supporters, that it is only a minority causing the trouble. "One must not unnecessarily exaggerate after one incident," he said.
"England's fans are a must-have at major tournament. They come in large numbers and really add to the atmosphere. We are excited at having them and it will be great for the tournament if they qualify.
"We saw them in Germany when they lost to Portugal in Frankfurt and they were celebrating and enjoying the game. It tells you something that it was the players' wives and girlfriends that were the big news item. They bring something special."
(Source: Telegraph.co.uk)
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