England were warned yesterday they will be kicked out of Euro 2004 if their fans misbehave in Portugal next summer.
Gerhard Aigner, chief executive of UEFA, insists individual nations must be held responsible for the behaviour of their supporters during the European Championship finals.
English fans have a reputation for causing trouble - and though European football's governing body would be reluctant to punish the team over something for which they were not responsible, Sven-Goran Eriksson's men would face the consequences if there were serious problems.
"It is not our aim to eliminate teams who have qualified sportingly for a competition. We all know it is not something beneficial to the players when the fans misbehave - it is damaging," Aigner said.
"But we have to hold the team responsible in the end - and if that means we have to take out a team from the competition to protect the competition then we shall do so. That is what nobody wants. It is the last resort to protect the competition, and I hope we don't get to that point."
Aigner said UEFA and the FA are in constant communication in a bid to avoid trouble.
"We know their problem, and they know their problem better than anyone else," he said.
"When young people leave Britain and go across the Channel they seem more easily prepared to misbehave. We have seen that in holiday resorts when alcohol plays a part.
"We want to co-operate together so we can control the problem. We have to implement an educative process to improve it. But that takes time, and in the meantime we have to try to control the phenomenon with the help of governments so that football can continue without serious damage and, we hope, together we can educate people better."
Meanwhile, confirmation that England will be among the second seeds for the Euro 2004 finals has increased their chances of a favourable draw. England cannot now be drawn against heavyweights Spain, Italy and Germany for the group stage as those are also second seeds.
UEFA have based the seedings on the performances of teams in qualifying for the 2002 World Cup and for Euro 2004, which sees France, Sweden and the Czech Republic join hosts Portugal as the four top seeds.
Turkey's defeat in the play-offs by Latvia means Germany take Turkey's place as second seeds and so cannot meet England before the knock-out stages.
The draw takes place in Lisbon on November 30th and will divide the 16 qualifiers into four groups. France are the team England will want to avoid among the top seeds and Holland among the third seeds, while all the second seeds look strong.
England could end up in a tough group with France, Holland and Switzerland, or in a relatively easy group with the Czech Republic, Croatia and Latvia.
