Hardcore Hooligans Escape Police Net

Police are hunting for a hardcore group of banned football hooligans who they fear have managed to sneak into Portugal to carry out attacks on rival fans ahead of tonight's game.

More than 2,300 convicted or suspected hooligans have been issued with banning orders that require them to surrender their passports at least five days before the start of the first match and make it a crime to enter Portugal or neighbouring Spain during the tournament. Breaching an order can result in up to six months in jail.

David Swift, the senior British police officer on the ground in Portugal, says 97 per cent of fans covered by a banning order have handed in their passports but around 150 suspected hooligans are unaccounted for. The European governing body, Uefa, has made it clear the England team will be thrown out of the tournament if fans cause significant disorder.

Twenty-one people have been intercepted at UK ports and airports in the past three days. Swift says: 'It is not easy to obtain a duplicate passport but it can be done. We are not talking about significant numbers of people, but we are talking about a handful.'

Andy Nicholls, a category C hooligan, the National Football Intelligence Unit's highest rating, was prosecuted for going to Moscow to see Russia play Wales. 'I didn't realise my ban covered Wales,' he says. 'It was only a week after I got back that I was arrested, but it shows the orders aren't there to stop people going, just to make it easier to prosecute them when they come back. I know people who are going to Euro 2004 to say they have got one over on the authorities.'

* Portuguese police played down reports that they had foiled a plot to bomb yesterday's opening ceremony in Porto. Speculation arose after the arrest of 15 men of Arab origin, one suspected of involvement with a radical Muslim organisation.