Football: Brussels talks about tickets

THE French organisers of the World Cup will defend the small allocation of tickets to foreign fans as a "security measure" in a crucial meeting in Brussels today in which Jacques Lambert, the director general of the organising committee, will meet the EU Commissioner responsible for free and fair competition, Karel van Miert.

The European Commission has warned that the system used for allocating tickets, reserving 60 per cent for people with French addresses and bank accounts, may break EU free trade laws. But Mr Lambert plans to argue that this method is essential to segregate fans.

If the EU insists on its interpretation of European law, the organising committee will insist that it is still too late to change allocations for the group matches.