6,000 Argentina fans banned from World Cup stadiums

Argentina banned nearly 6,000 supporters from attending stadiums at the upcoming World Cup. Reuters is reporting that these people consists on violent offenders and citizens involved in illegal activity. Also, the same applies to those currently in debt for food dues.

Buenos Aires government officials issued a statement on Monday via radio about the ruling. “The violent ones are here and in Qatar. We want to bring peace back to football and that the violent ones are outside the stadiums,” the capital city’s Justice and Security Minister Marcelo D’Alessandro said in the interview.

“They were included for belonging to the ‘barras’ [violent fans], for participating in violent acts, for illicit associations such as ‘trapitos’ [banned street businesses], and for owing maintenance payments [from divorced parents],” D’Alessandro also added.

The Argentina official claimed that his country will be working with the Qatari government to enforce the policy. “As always in the World Cups, delegations of different police bodies [of the country] will be sent to work together with the Qatari security authorities,” said D’Allessandro.

Argentina fans banned from attending World Cup in Qatar

Argentina’s national security ministry previously agreed to cooperate with Qatar to keep these people out of the stadiums. The decision went final earlier this summer.

Also, D’Allessandro echoed that the rule applies to a number of fans watching matches in Argentina. The official stated that around 3,000 of the banned are “barrabravas” and cannot attend soccer games in their own country.

Argentina is currently one of the favorites to collect the World Cup trophy. Lionel Messi leads an Argentina side currently ranked third in the world standings. They will compete in Group C alongside Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Poland. Argentina begin their World Cup tournament against Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, Nov. 22.

PHOTO: IMAGO / ZUMA Wire