UK sending three police officers to World Cup for ‘cultural’ help

LONDON: British police are sending just three officers to the US as “cultural interpreters” during the World Cup given the lack of any US funding, UK police said on Thursday.
By contrast, 40 officers went to Germany for the 2024 European Championships, with financing by the hosts, said Mark Roberts, who leads football policing. “The States are not funding mobile travel delegations this time,” Roberts told reporters of next month’s tournament where England and Scotland will play their three opening group games in the US
Both ‌nations have a ‌huge traveling fan base and the English have ‌a ⁠history of hooliganism, ⁠though the exorbitant cost may put many off this tournament which is being co-hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico.
“Our fans at World Cups are really well behaved ... I’m not anticipating problems, but clearly we’d rather have a presence there that can get involved if we are seeing issues develop,” Roberts added, stressing that he was not criticizing the US decision nor ⁠was there hostility to a UK deployment.
The White House ‌Task Force for the FIFA World Cup ‌2026 did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Two additional British officers will ‌be working with US authorities at the Washington-based International Police Cooperation ‌Center.
“Most of the other European countries just aren’t bothering” to send their own officers to the tournament, Roberts added.

’CULTURAL’ ASSISTANCE
Though the UK and US share the same language and historical roots, British police accompanying fans would act as “cultural interpreters” to ‌assist US counterparts.
“We’ll be saying to the local police often, ‘this isn’t a problem’,” Roberts said.
“They might be noisy, ⁠they might be ⁠loud, clearly they may have a drink