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Troops to be deployed at stadium to ensure safety
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-08-06 12:26
More than 6,000 police officers and troops are expected to be deployed in and
around the Beijing Workers' Stadium Saturday to ensure public order in the Asian
Cup final.
The South China Morning Post reports that local and Japanese football fans
will be confined to separate stands during the match.
Tickets to the final have almost sold out with only a handful, priced at
2,000 yuan or over US$240 apiece, still on offer Thursday.
Scalpers queued in front of the stadium after this week's semi-finals to
purchase the lower-priced tickets. It is feared that when the final kicks off,
too many football fans will not have tickets and won't be able to cheer for the
Chinese team in the stadium. This could be a safety threat because there won't
be a big screen set up outside the arena.
Reports say that despite the stepped-up security measures, some Japanese fans
are not keen to face a possible standoff with supporters of the Chinese team at
the stadium. In China, emotions still run high over Japanese military aggression
in the country during World War II.
The General Administration of Sport despatched officials to the Chinese squad
this week, asking them to respect the Japanese footballers and not to overreact
on the field on Saturday. The Chinese Football Association has expressed the
belief that most fans will respect the visiting team, although there is a
possibility that some fans may not be so polite.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry has lodged a complaint with the Japanese
embassy over a Japanese Football Association mistake concerning Taiwan.
The official Xinhua News Agency reports that Japanese brochures for the event
contained a map of Asia on which the Chinese mainland and Taiwan were marked in
different colours. Japan agreed to recall the brochures.
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