US play hardball with ticket policy

A ticketing row has broken out over the United States's efforts to try and create a partisan atmosphere for their World Cup qualifying match against Honduras tomorrow.

The Honduras fans are complaining that officials are selling seats in the lower tier of Washington's RFK stadium only to supporters with American names, a practice which is confining the visitors fans to the seats in the upper tier.

Hugo Noe Pino, the Honduras ambassador to Washington and a keen football fan, was forced to ask his aide's wife – whose son belongs to a US football club – to send in the application for the tickets in her American name after he was turned down.

Mr Pino told the Washington Post that he had applied for 50 tickets for the game back in June but was told that seats in the lower tier were reserved for "the US soccer family".

"It's unfair," said Mr Pino. "I understand they want to preserve home-field advantage... but just because they know we are Hondurans they deny us tickets." Many other Honduras fans have complained that while Americans have ample access to the tickets through sales at local teams, they are forced to either misrepresent their allegiance or pay inflated prices to get tickets through agents or internet auctions.

While most teams around the world are keen to consolidate local support, the idea of trying to create an extreme local advantage is new in the US. Some observers say that the US Soccer Federation has been piqued by the treatment its team received in Latin America and the Caribbean, which ranged from noisy bands playing outside their hotel all night to having coins and plastic bags of urine thrown at the players.

Kevin Payne, president of DC United, whose stadium is hosting the match, made no apologies. He said: "Our objective is trying to win this game. We don't go anywhere near the depths that other countries go to in trying to create a hostile environment."