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Scots left out Fans claim racial discrimination in Wembley ticket sales
Posted: Tuesday October 19, 1999 01:15 PM
LONDON (AP) -- The Commission for Racial Equality said Tuesday it will investigate whether Scottish soccer fans were victims of racism when they were refused tickets for next month's Euro 2000 playoff against England at Wembley. Sir Herman Ouseley, chairman of the state-funded independent body, said the panel had received 18 complaints from fans who were refused tickets because they either had a Scottish accent or an address in Scotland. The restriction was introduced in a bid to ensure that seats in the English section of the stadium for the Nov. 17 game went only to England fans. Authorities are concerned about the possibility of crowd violence if England and Scotland fans wind up in the same sections. England and Scotland meet in a two-leg playoff to detemine which advances to next year's European Championship finals in The Netherlands and Belgium. The first game is at Hampden Park in Glasgow on Nov. 13, with the return match at Wembley four days later. Suspected Scottish callers to the Wembley telephone ticket hotline were advised to contact the Scottish Football Association, which has an allocation of 7,000 seats. Sir Herman warned that he restriction could be a violation of the Race Relations Act. "In this case Scottish people are claiming that because of their Scottishness they are being denied access fairly and equally to tickets for a game," he said. "We have to look at those complaints and verify what happened and indeed whether racial discrimination occurred." However, he acknowledged that even if the policy was ruled illegal, there was little the CRE could do. "Clearly there are other considerations and safety considerations are quite important," he said. "It is a question of how you then treat people and deal with them." Not surprisingly, the game at 76,000-seat Wembley is sold out. Wembley officials said Tuesday that the 36,000 tickets reserved for English members of the general public were snapped up in the first 24 hours they went on sale over the hotline. More than 1.25 million calls were made to the hotline number during that period, temporarily knocking out some phone services in the area around Wembley. In addition to the 36,000 tickets sold Monday and Tuesday, the majority of seats go to members of the official England Supporters' Club There were reports that tickets were being offered on the black market at up to 30 times the asking price. The London Evening Standard said one scalper who was asking 400 pounds (US$640) a ticket Monday raised his price to 750 (US$1,200) for the same seat an hour later. England and Scotland have not played each other since the Euro 1996 Championships, when England won 2-1 at Wembley.
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