World Cup: Japan to bar entry of hooligans during finals
Japan will revise a domestic law in a move to bar soccer hooligans from entering the country during next year’s World Cup, a government official said today.
The Justice Ministry is finalising a bill designed to revise the nation’s immigration law, said Kifumi Oki, an official in the ministry’s immigration bureau.
Under proposed legislation, law enforcement authorities can also expel those foreigners who are engaged in hooliganism after entering Japan, Oki said.
The bill stipulates that Japan can bar from entering those activists who have been given criminal punishment for acts of sabotage against international conferences in the past, Oki said.
Oki said the proposed bill is scheduled to be endorsed at a meeting of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s cabinet on October 26.
The government hopes the revised legislation will be enacted during the current parliamentary session and take effect next March, ahead of the May 31-June 30 finals to be co-hosted by Japan and South Korea.
Earlier this year, Japanese police asked their European counterparts to send so-called ‘‘spotter’’ officers to keep hooligans from entering stadiums during next year’s World Cup.
According to a Transport Ministry estimate, about 430,000 fans from abroad will visit Japan during World Cup 2002.
Takujiro Kono, an official of the ministry section in charge of the World Cup, said it was difficult to estimate how many of the visiting fans from abroad will be hooligans.
During the 1998 World Cup in France, overzealous fans went on a rampage, leaving more than 60 people injured.
