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| June 8, 2002 | Saturday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 26,1423 |
England fans arrested
SAPPORO (Japan), June 7: Two soccer shirts, $8 in change and a quarrel have probably cost four England soccer fans the chance to see their team play Argentina in the World Cup.
Two England fans were arrested in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo for allegedly stealing soccer kits displayed in a popular sports bar, police said Friday.
A third was picked up for allegedly cheating a salesman in a convenience store out of 1,000 yen ($8) in change.
Another was arrested early Friday after a fight with a Japanese man in the Susukino entertainment district.
One man allegedly stole a soccer kit valued at 32,000 yen ($257.7) from a wall display along with a bottle of Japanese rice wine from a sports bar, said Katsumi Sumiyoshi, spokesman for the Hokkaido Police Headquarters. The second man allegedly stole a kit autographed by a Mexican player and valued at 45,000 yen.
In a sign of the police nervousness, a squad of riot police was sent to the area but withdrew after plainclothes police arrested the two men in the bar late on Thursday, Sumiyoshi said.
Japanese police arrested a man from the United States on Wednesday on suspicion of scalping a World Cup ticket.
Police said the 25-year-old was stopped in the central city of Kobe for selling a ticket to Wednesday’s Sweden-Nigeria match to a Japanese man for 15,000 yen ($120), about twice its official price.
Most World Cup tickets are officially priced at 7,000 to 17,000 yen. The man faces possible imprisonment of up to six months or a fine of up to 500,000 yen, police said.—Reuters
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