Vogts said the question of withdrawal was put to him early yesterday morning following the attack in Lens after his team's 2-2 draw against Yugoslavia on Sunday. The French policeman is fighting for his life in a coma after being severely beaten about the head by the hooligans.

"I had to deal with the question at 2.00 in the morning and I was angry," a clearly irritated Vogts said. "What can the team do (about it)?

"I was very hurt by what the DFB (German Soccer Federation) planned. It has nothing to do with the team. I feel that I have been attacked personally. The team has always left a good impression of Germany abroad. I had atalk with (DFB chief Egidius) Braun at eight (yesterday morning) where I pointed out certain things."

Vogts was quoted in a DFB statement yesterday as saying he would have been happy to have lost the match against Yugoslavia if that had meant the policeman remaining healthy.

DFB made an informal offer to withdraw from the World Cup yesterday but it was turned down by FIFA, soccer's governing body.

Condemnation for the attack increased as German Chancellor Helmut Kohl termed the violent incident "a national disgrace". Urging French authorities to punish those responsible severely, Kohl said the attack was "an absolute disgrace for our country."

This was the latest in action off the field at France '98, which in addition to some refreshingly attacking soccer, is living its share of upheavals.

Admittedly there seems to have been some laxity on the past of the French authorities in heeding the warnings of other neighbouring EU nations with the continent-wide malaise of hooliganism. To think, theMexican police had been trained by special French police in riot control for the Mexican World Cup, just when the spectre of England's hooliganism was threatening to becoming a worldwide phenomenon.

The poor capacity of French stadia -- Montpellier's La Mosson with a capacity of only 35,000, being the smallest -- may have had a lot to do with the trouble getting out of hand. The subsequent unearthing of a ticketing scam, only seems inevitable given the manner in which things were carried out.

Italia '90 may have been the most boring World Cup, but it came up trumps as far as organisation and administration were concerned. France '98 seems to be going entirely the other way. Michel Platini, and his merry men at the CFO, the organising committee for France '98, appear more concerned about events on the pitch than those off it -- something that unarguably falls within their purview. Hence we have a record number of sending offs a Red Wednesday when the Colombian referee John Jairo Toro, clearly under ordersand pressure, brandished seven yellow cards and three reds in the Denmark-South Africa draw.

It was a fall out of the FIFA president-elect Sepp Blatter's warning to the referees to clamp down or else. Added to it was Platini's view that it was necessary to keep football flowing at the World Cup. Later, you have a disciplinary committee which reviews the fouls and its perpetrator and then goes on to decide how more games to ban an already-expelled player for. Such lofty codes for such a simple game somehow do not jell.

With all due sympathy for Andres Escobar and his family, one can't help but feel that had they chosen to gun down each `auto goal' scored, and with Blatter and Platini egging the referees to play poker on the players, France '98 could well be a World Cup without the players. Troubled World Cup? Not quite. Football, as always, is still proving it otherwise.

Special to The Indian Express