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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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