French Mayor Is Scared Of British Invasion

There's plenty of the club season to go, not least the Champions League and Europa League finals that were decided this week, but that doesn't mean we aren't already excited for this summer's Euros in France. One mayor in the country isn't so excited.

There's nothing like a football tournament summer, especially one that's in a pretty decent time zone in terms of watching the matches, especially as an England fan you can follow the tournament without watching: have no expectations, build those expectations for absolutely no reason, perform well in either a pre tournament friendly or opening group fixture, reach fever pitch "WE'RE GOING TO WIN THE EUROS," get super excited by prospect of playing a side that knocked us out of a recent tournament, lose (usually on penalties), shout out them for being rubbish when they arrive home and finally relax and enjoy the tournament without England.

However whilst we might be excited for the Euros to kick off there's one government official in France who isn't excited by the prospect of some of the visiting fans to his city. Call us mad but we'd only get more excited if FIFA or UEFA did finally see sense and hold a tournament here for the first time since 1996, 2020 doesn't count.

The mayor of Lens, where England will take on Wales, is worried about the amount of Brits who might make the trip to his small town:

"We hope the suggested figures are not the same as the actual number of fans who will turn up," said mayor Sylvain Robert.

"I don't know how we'd find space for 100,000 people.

"We are apprehensive about the number of fans who could arrive without a ticket as it's a problem for this type of event."

LENS

Authorities are expecting 100,000 to turn up to the city in the north of France for the clash between Wales and England with the capacity of the stadium only 38,223 (thanks Wiki), and the population of the city is only 32,663 (thanks again Wiki).

There will be a fan park in Lens but that will only hold 10,000 fans. At most that's around 50,000 fans accounted for so another 50k left to roam the streets of Lens and find a bar to watch it from.

It's no wonder the Mayor isn't looking forward to the invasion.

(Via: Dream Team FC)

Topics: Euro 2016, England, France, Wales

Ryan Sidle

Ryan is a writer for SPORTbible. He covers all sport from football, formula one, cricket, rugby, tennis, athletics, mma and wrestling. He obviously hates YOUR football team and has no interest in synchronised swimming.

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