Hooligans treated as 2nd class citizens

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British police vowed to show football hooligans the red card if they try to travel to the World Cup.

From Friday, uniformed and plain clothes officers will be patrolling every sea and airport across the country, to spot potential troublemakers.

The British officers are being joined by German police, in a bid to reassure fans of their safety and create a World Cup "carnival" atmosphere.

Launching the ports operation at Manchester Airport, Stephen Thomas, assistant chief constable of Greater Manchester Police and the leader on football issues for the Association of Chief Police Officers, warned hooligans to stay away from Germany.

He said: "The vast majority of football supporters are there to behave themselves and have a good time. Nobody has got anything to worry about, unless you're a football hooligan.

"If people with football banning orders turn up at the airport they will be arrested, taken to court, banged up in prison or fined.

"I am very confident that we will prevent those people we have targeted getting into the country."

Assistant chief constable Thomas said there were around 3,500 English people with football banning orders, all of whom were asked to surrender their passports from May 30th this year.

He said: "It is the best result we have had so far at this stage, even better than we did in Euro 2000. Two days after people were supposed to start surrendering their passports, more than 90 per cent of them had been handed in.

"We have copies of those passports that haven't been handed in and we are confident of catching those people if they try to travel to Germany."