THE TICKET allocations for English and other foreign fans for this summer's World Cup finals in France are mean and unfair.

But, worse, they are a dangerous recipe for disaster.

England supporters will get fewer than 10,000 tickets for the three opening games.

Just 2,500 will be available for the final group match against Colombia in the 42,000-seater stadium in Lens, near Lille, on June 26, for instance.

And supporters of other European sides in the competition have been treated just as badly.

But, like England fans, as they are from countries with close and easy access to France, they are the ones who most want to realise what is often a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see their national side compete in a World Cup tournament.

For that reason alone supply ought to match their demand much better.

But consider the alarming prospect if it does not.

To begin with, the lack of tickets stands to create a black market.

The rip-offs that will ensue may be bad enough, but the risk of the segregation of rival fans being broken down inside stadiums is too awful to contemplate.

So, too, is the prospect of hordes of angry ticketless fans from different countries milling around outside stadiums and in city centres and seeking to vent their frustration on others.

If FIFA and the French authorities had set out to plan a nightmare situation, they could not have done better than the set-up they have come up with.

Sport Minister Tony Banks is quite right to protest and to use today's international seminar on World Cup security at Blackburn to register his anger and concern.

Far too often, and especially on the big occasions, fans - the lifeblood of football -are treated shabbily.

But the ticket allocations for France are not just another instance of this - they are a prescription for catastrophe.

They must be changed at once.

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