US police have been ramping up preparations for the World Cup, with fans warned officers will be armed with “pepper spray, guns and Tasers” in case of crowd trouble.
The i Paper understands huge numbers of additional police will be drafted in from neighbouring cities for England’s group games in Dallas, Boston and New Jersey. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers will also be present at matches.
Despite relatively low ticket take-up overall, England are taking huge numbers of supporters to the tournament, which will be co-hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico. There are expected to be over 10,000 travelling fans for each of England’s group matches, with around 3,500 of those attending through the Official Supporters’ Club.
The Football Association is confident of avoiding a repeat of the violent disorder involving England fans that flared up in Marseille in 2016 as they clashed with supporters from Russia, and at the Euro 2020 final at Wembley.
There are currently 2,467 fans in England and Wales who have been issued with football banning orders. It is understood those fans will have to surrender their passports for the period between 1 June and the conclusion of the World Cup to prevent them travelling to the tournament.
The i Paper has been told US police will only use guns in the case of “deadly force”, which comes down to an officer’s “judgement”. All officers will also be issued with body cameras before the tournament kicks off.
“Fans from the UK should expect to see officers wear a belt with a service weapon, a Taser, pepper spray. They do carry what we call ‘OC spray’ – or pepper spray. We don’t generally pull that out unless a situation really, really gets out of hand,” a source said.
“We’ll have a very large police presence in and around the stadiums. Additionally, the stadium itself has its own security force. That’s not law enforcement, but there are going to be a lot of them stationed in every section and every area of the stadium so that if they see something, fans get into fights that start to escalate, they can try to intervene and calm the situation.
“If it gets a little more serious, that’s when we may have to look at filing criminal charges and potentially arresting somebody.”
Police will be mainly be instructed to “take the path of least resistance” before using handcuffs, with stadium security also on hand to eject fans from games if need be.
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Sources close to the police operation in Arlington, Texas, host of England’s first group game against Croatia, said any fans who are prosecuted are likely to face any punishments, including jail, in the US rather than being sent home.
Extra police will also be deployed on an “off-duty” basis to provide cover in case of non-World Cup related emergencies.
The most common offences at this summer’s World Cup are expected to be assault, DWI – driving while intoxicated – and public intoxication.
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