PORTUGAL: In the first serious incidence of fan misbehaviour at the Euro 2004 football championships in Portugal, more than 200 English fans clashed with police in the holiday resort of Albufeira, close to Faro on the Algarve coast, in the early hours of yesterday morning.
After the violence, in which no one was seriously injured and which caused only minor damage, 11 Britons were arrested and charged with public order offences and resisting arrest. They are due in court today.
Mr Manuel Jorge, a spokesman for Portugal's paramilitary police force, the GNR, told reporters that the fighting had broken out in an area of bars and clubs frequented mainly by British holidaymakers: "It started with arguments between football fans who had been drinking a lot and between fans and various bar owners."
Portuguese TV footage of the scuffles showed what appeared to be a standoff between police and fans, with several fans apparently taunting police by waving the English flag at them. At a certain point, the fans started to throw chairs, bottles and glasses at the police prompting the call-up of both mounted police and reinforcements in riot gear.
The incident, which probably also involved British holidaymakers unconnected with the championships, represented the first serious setback in what has been an unexpectedly successful Portuguese policing operation.
An intense screening operation by British authorities in the UK, allied to a low profile, "softly, softly" approach by the Portuguese police acting on the advice of their English colleagues, has so far seen the tournament avoid a repetition of the widespread violence involving English fans that has marked nearly every major football tournament since the European Championships in Germany in 1988.
It remains to be seen whether this incident will prove insignificant or will act as a spark that generates further problems. England are due to play Switzerland tomorrow in the central Portuguese city of Coimbra and their next game will be against Croatia in Lisbon on Monday.