Red card for Halliwell Landau soccer trip

MANCHESTER firm Halliwell Landau was forced to call off a corporate hospitality trip to Friday's crunch England/Colombia World Cup game, after chartering a plane for what is believed to be £5000.

Corporate partner Clive Garston had invited 18 Manchester businessmen to the game.

The agency through which it booked tickets - Great Portland Entertainment - turned out to be unauthorised and the DTI brought proceedings to close it when it became clear it could not meet the demand for a reported £2.4m worth of tickets.

Garston said he later managed to find tickets from elsewhere. But then he saw the horrific TV scenes of English fans fighting French and Tunisians at Marseilles and heard about the long wait arriving supporters faced at Marseilles airport.

Garston said that "it was a great shame" that the firm had been forced to pull out of the trip, but that the clients had backed the decision.