Football fans yesterday welcomed plans to reform World Cup ticket sales. The European Union are eager to avoid any repeat of the France 98 ticket fiasco whenever the game's premier tournament returns to Europe, notably if England were to land the prize of hosting the 2006 finals.

The European Commission will insist that in future tickets are made equally available to all members of the continent's public instead of just supporters from the home nation.

The EU this week fined the organisers of France 98 £650 for their controversial ticket policy, and the Commission are likely to come down harder in future if tournament organisers break the new guidelines.

These rules will apply to future international sporting events, said EU spokesman Stefan Rating, and the organisers of next year's European Championships in Holland and Belgium have already been briefed.

While equal access for tickets means fans from all European member states will be able to buy them, Alison Pilling of the English Football Supporters Association believes most will still go to fans in the host country because they don't have to travel and their team has automatic qualification.

She said: "If England stages the World Cup in 2006 and all tickets are equally available I still think the home nation will still buy up the majority of them, especially in a nation of football-lovers like ours. It's about having a fair crack of the whip.

"In fact it would allow fans from Scotland and Wales a better chance because they were treated the same as foreign fans during Euro 96 and allocated only the number of tickets allocated to competing nations."

FIFA said ticket allocation details in major tournaments are always left to the organising committee from the host nation.

A spokesman said: "The organising committee have to start selling tickets but only on their own market because they are the most likely to buy because they are in that given place at that given time.

"It is difficult to sell to others because they don't know if their own country will qualify."

This, according to Pilling, is the root of another serious ticketing problem. The sale of tickets before the countries have qualified or the draw is made can only fuel the black market.

Scottish FA spokesman Andy Mitchell said many of the problems have been sorted out in time for next year's European Championships.

He said: "The major difficulties in France were the geography of the country, the growing popularity of World Cup football and the fairly small stadia.

"Obviously you can't do anything about geography. But other issues have been addressed, and there has been more equal distribution for Euro 2000.

"The size of the EU fine is not really an issue. A large fine wouldn't achieve anything, but lessons have obviously been learned."

The fact that the EU Commission has decided everyone should have equal access to tickets for major sporting events in Europe will have wide implications. Strictly speaking, this would allow anyone from a European member state to apply for tickets on general sale for the FA Cup final, a Five Nations rugby international or Wimbledon.

On the other hand, sports fans from foreign countries would have a better chance to see the French Open tennis or an Italian cup final.