"We will have 12 beautiful stadiums with every seat individually numbered," Montezemolo said. "For the first time in Europe's history, we will sell tickets just for the exact number of seats. Not one more.
"That is a big sacrifice. Where we will sell one ticket for a person seated, we could have sold two for people standing."
Meanwhile, in England in wake of the Hillsborough tragedy, the government ponders solutions--identity cards for ticket-buyers, disallowing fans of visiting teams from attending games--individual teams have acted.
In some stadiums, including Hillsborough and Liverpool's Anfield, no standing-room tickets are sold. The Liverpool team spent $800,000 this summer to improve the safety of its stadium, which was reduced in capacity by 6,000 to 39,000.
But although there have been no notable incidents this season in the English League, 102 English hooligans were arrested for vandalism and fighting at Stockholm two weeks ago, when they followed the national team for a World Cup qualifying game against Sweden.
There were further incidents at the stadium involving 77 English fans, but police said those were instigated by Swedes.
Fighting earlier had broken out on the ferry from the Netherlands to Goteborg, Sweden, among about 300 English fans, one of whom was lost overboard.
"THEY SHAME US ALL AGAIN," screamed the headline in London's Daily Mail on the morning after the riot at Stockholm.
Some British government officials expressed outrage because the rioters were sent home without being charged by Swedish police.
"We just want to get rid of them," a police spokesman said.
The next day, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher urged the English Football Assn. to withdraw the team from the World Cup. That is not likely to happen, but exhibition games against the Netherlands in December and Scotland in May have been canceled.
Also resulting from the violence in Sweden was the establishment of a national anti-hooligan force, the National Football Intelligence Unit, which will be based at Scotland Yard.
"We shall target these traveling criminals--that's what they are--identifying the trends, the methods of transport and the weapons," the Unit's superintendent, Adrian Appleby, said last week.
He said that of primary importance to the force will be the World Cup. "We will respond to any request made by the authorities in Italy," he said.
Montezemolo said that he is encouraged by the formation of the force.
"England has a big tradition in football, maybe the biggest tradition," he said. "They will make a big effort to avoid what happened in the past."
There is no clear consensus about the identity of the hooligans.
Many of them are believed to be young, unemployed and pessimistic about their chances of rising above the lower class under England's current economic conditions.
But there is increasing evidence that their numbers also include gangs of skinheads and neo-Nazis who have less interest in soccer than in creating disturbances. The fact that none among the 300 rioters on the ferry to Goteborg had tickets to the game is an argument for those who claim that identity cards are a waste of time and money.
What is England to do?
In a letter last week to a newspaper, The Guardian, a Liberal member of Parliament, Denis Howell, wrote of the dilemma:
"My own ideas of freedom lead one to the conclusion that we do have a responsibility to our friends to protect them from all this filth, and that may be a more critical freedom to exercise than that of maintaining the freedom to travel for those who we know will abuse it."
