They drink until they vomit, rage bare-chested and pick fistfights with rival fans. Three thousand three hundred of these British soccer "hooligans" were forced to turn in their passports by Tuesday to keep them from causing disruptions at the World Cup tournament, which starts next week in Germany.
In addition to barring Britain's most aggressive fans from traveling abroad, police are also keeping an eye on them at home by demanding that they register at a local police station every day England has a game.
"Ultimately, it's about England's reputation," said a spokeswoman for the British Home Office, who by tradition is not identified by name. "We don't want to export a problem."
Last season, British police arrested 3,600 people for "football-related offenses," typically disorderly behavior while watching a match. Soccer is known as football in most countries outside the United States.
Hooliganism has been a major social problem in England since the 1970s, but after a particularly ugly melee in 2000 in Belgium, laws were passed to ground the increasingly mobile troublemakers.
In that incident, British fans hurled bottles and chairs at German supporters before and after defeating Germany in a match. More than 900 were arrested, and police resorted to a water cannon for crowd control. At the time, Prime Minister Tony Blair called it "mindless thuggery that has brought such shame to the country."
Steven Powell, a spokesman for the Football Supporters' Federation, said his group's motto is "Passion yes, violence no." He said the group in principle supports the "banning orders" that bar disorderly fans from matches for up to 10 years. But he said he was concerned that in a few cases, people are being banned from games because they were drunk, not violent.
"You can be merry and boisterous and no danger to anybody," Powell said. He said he had no problem with the law coming down hard on someone "who bashed someone with a broken bottle." But he said he thought there should be more flexibility in dealing with a fan guilty of little more than "being a bit stupid."
'There is potential for a lot of trouble'
Relatively few die-hard English fans flew to Japan and South Korea for the previous World Cup, in 2002, but 100,000 British fans are expected to make the shorter, cheaper trip to Germany for the games that begin June 9. Those without tickets can watch the matches on huge public screens near the stadiums. British and German fans have an intense rivalry, and that makes English officials, who have seen a recent decline in the violence problem, nervous that it could flare again.
"There is potential for a lot of trouble," said James Bandy, deputy editor of Match, England's biggest soccer weekly. He said he believes most law-abiding fans applaud "anything to stop it."
Stadiums throughout Europe are increasingly well policed, as other countries have seen matches marred by aggressive fans who throw punches and shout racist epithets and other abuse. In England, both uniformed officers and undercover "football intelligence officers" with video cameras routinely scan crowds looking for sparks.
British police also maintain a computerized database of known hooligans, and officers patrol departure lounges of British airports before overseas matches, checking passenger lists against their records. Dozens of British uniformed officers and undercover "hooligan spotters" will fly to Germany to help make sure hyped-up fans stick to singing national anthems and waving flags to show their spirit.
