TOKYO, May 25: A four-men television crew has become the first known Japanese victims of hooliganism ahead of the World Cup finals as they were attacked outside a British-owned pub in Thailand, it was reported Saturday.

The TV Tokyo station said that the crew was assigned to cover moves in the Thai resort beach of Pattaya by European football hooligans, who were preparing to attend World Cup matches in Japan and South Korea.

The four members, including TV Tokyo’s Hong Kong-based director Tatsuya Yamada, were interviewing Caucasian men outside the pub when several men with European features approched them by motorcycle and showered them with an anti-rape spray, the TV station said.

None of them were seriously injured. But one of them, a Thai cameraman, could not open his eyes for an hour, the report said.

“We wanted to let people know about hooligans before the World Cup. Fortunately, the incident did not get so serious,” the station said.—AFP