Twenty English fans arrested in Germany

FRANKFURT, June 11: Twenty England World Cup fans were arrested in Germany yesterday, a British police spokeswoman said today.

She added that 70,000 England fans were thought to have been in Frankfurt for the match. It had been estimated before the tournament that 25,000-30,000 would be in the western German city.

''We understand there were 70,000 English people in Frankfurt yesterday so we see a figure of 12 arrests as quite positive,'' the spokeswoman said.

Twelve of the arrests were made in Frankfurt, where Sven-Goran Eriksson's team won their opening Group B match 1-0 against Paraguay, and eight in Cologne.

Two were for alleged assault and criminal damage outside the ground and the pair will appear in court in Frankfurt later today, she said.

Four arrests were made at the game, two fans were trying to steal tickets from other England fans and two had swastikas painted on their bodies.

The latter two have been bailed to reappear at a police station but there will be no further action taken against the former pair.

There were also four arrests and fines for criminal damage and public order offences and two for possession of cannabis for which no further action was taken.

The spokeswoman had no details of the arrests in Cologne.

REUTERS

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