OSAKA -- Amid nationwide jubilation on Dec. 1 over the birth of a daughter to the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, coffee shop owner Koji Fukushima of Osaka felt he had little to celebrate.

This was because of the day's big sporting story from Pusan, South Korea: The draw for the 2002 World Cup finals determined that the English would be coming to town next summer.

The draw threw England, Sweden, Argentina and Nigeria together in Group F, labeled the "Group of Death" by pundits because of the high-profile teams.

English matches will be played in three Japanese cities, including Osaka. England, which has an infamous legacy of hooliganism at international soccer tournaments, plays its last game of the first round against Nigeria at Osaka's Nagai Stadium on June 12, after playing Sweden in Saitama and Argentina in Sapporo.

And this scenario is being regarded as a major cause for concern by local police, organizers and residents.

Fukushima, a coffee shop owner and head of the Nagai shopping street union in Higashi-Sumiyoshi Ward, said his first reaction upon hearing the news was, "Oh no!"

Five days after the draw, some 40 local shop owners and residents participated in a meeting with local police and Osaka municipal officials and were briefed on the security measures that will be in place during the event.

Although the meeting had been planned well ahead of the draw, it provided an opportunity for local residents to learn more about hooliganism and problems involving England in particular.

Most of the locals in question came to the meeting with a very cursory understanding of the World Cup and the issue of hooliganism.

While watching a videotape of clashes between hooligans and police during the 1998 World Cup in France and the European Championship in the Netherlands and Belgium last year, some of the above were stunned by the scale of violence involved.

A police officer at the meeting stressed, however, that the scenes featured on the tape were extreme examples and that authorities would not allow incidents of this kind to take place in Osaka.

Osaka municipal officials are responsible for security inside the stadium. They said they may install a 3-meter fence around the perimeter of the main stadium and its parking lot in order to put greater distance between those who have the right to enter -- including ticket-holders and officials -- and those who do not.

The city may also designate specific train and subway stations for ticket-holders allocated to different parts of the ground in a bid to prevent rival fans from clashing, they said.

Visitors to Nagai Stadium can use two JR stations or a subway station.

In addition to local retailers and residents, schools in the area also fear the possibility of danger during the event. Nagai Elementary School is just across the road from Nagai Park, in which the stadium is located, and is positioned above the local subway station.

With both the June 12 match between England and Nigeria and the June 14 game between Japan and Tunisia scheduled to kick off at 3:30 p.m. on weekdays, around 800 children who attend Nagai Elementary School will probably encounter crowds flocking to the stadium, school officials said.

Akira Yoshida, vice principal at the school, said that no decision has been made yet in terms of addressing the issue. He added, however, that the school may be closed on these days if the games appear to pose too much of a risk.

The hooligan issue does not apply just to England fans. Indeed, many local residents say they are concerned that Japanese fans may degenerate into angry mobs should the national team fail.

"We're not taking anything for granted," an Osaka Prefectural Police official said. Nevertheless, prefectural police remain confident of their ability to maintain order during the event, he said.

Police held a special antiterrorist, antihooligan drill involving 700 officers on Dec. 2, a day after the Pusan draw. "It was not necessarily meant as a drill with hooligans from England in mind," the police official said.

"But we were more focused on the event after we knew who would be coming to Osaka." He declined comment on how the police felt about English fans coming to Osaka, but said the focus of antihooligan measures has intensified.

"How England plays in the first two matches will also be an important factor (in measuring the possibility of hooliganism). Besides, we'll have a chance to see how fans behave during England's (earlier) matches in Saitama and Sapporo," he said.

But as another Osaka police officer put it: "Nobody knows what will happen (with hooligans). There are a lot of things that we don't know. After all, we have never seen them with our own eyes."

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the British Embassy in Tokyo said that "it is regrettable that the news that England will play its first round matches in Japan has been accompanied by extensive reporting of hooliganism," because "hooliganism is not limited to English fans" and "the number of hooligans is tiny compared to the number of ordinary fans."

The spokeswoman added that the British Government has been implementing measures "to help ensure that the 2002 World Cup is as free of the risk of hooliganism as possible," including crafting legislation to prevent anyone convicted of a soccer-related offense from traveling overseas and cooperating closely with Japanese authorities, including offering expert "spotters" during the event who could pinpoint hooligans among the general fans.