For anyone worried about English soccer hooligans blighting this summer's World Cup, Adrian Bevington, the English Football Association's communications manager, has one message: They won't be there.
"Around 1,500 to 1,800 hooligans won't be coming," Bevington assured The Japan Times on Wednesday. "Around 1,000 people -- I don't want to call them fans -- have been banned under new laws that were enacted following Euro 2000, while the Football Association has removed a further 800 from its lists after reforming the supporters' club."
The F.A. says around 43 percent of the new England Supporters Club are new members and the F.A. has top-ranked former policemen vetting all applications to weed out potential troublemakers. Anyone with a conviction for soccer-related trouble and/or a conviction for a violent offense is simply not allowed to be part of the England setup.