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World Cup concern over hooligans
 German Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned hooligans to stay away from the World Cup BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) -- German security and intelligence services believe German hooligans are planning to cause mayhem at this year's World Cup, a German magazine said on Sunday. "The hooligans are in the starting blocks," the intelligence chief in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Johannes Schmalzl, told Focus magazine. "They believe that the police cannot be everywhere during the World Cup. They want to take advantage of that." Germany is hosting the 2006 World Cup from June 9 to July 9. Bavarian Interior Minister Guenther Beckstein also told the weekly magazine that the hooligans were preparing intensively for the World Cup. Focus said German authorities had become more nervous after Hansa Rostock fans rioted on February 5, injuring 18 police. Football-related violence has been typically taking place well away from stadiums, not necessarily on match days. Around 100 German and Polish hooligans staged a mass brawl in a wood on the German side of the border in late November. Focus said prosecutors in the southern city of Stuttgart, a World Cup venue, were investigating about 60 people suspected of assault in 12 organised fights in woods and fields in 2003 and 2004. 
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