England fan faces trial after dressing room rant

THE case against the England fan who berated the players after wandering into the team’s dressing room after Friday’s World Cup match with Algeria was adjourned yesterday.

Pavlos Joseph, 32, from Crystal Palace, south-east London, appeared at a special World Cup court in Cape Town. But the case was adjourned until Friday when he will go on trial.

At the court appearance, he was banned from attending future World Cup matches and released on 500 rand (€53) bail.

Brigadier Sally de Beer, spokeswoman for the South African Police Service, said: “The case was adjourned to Friday for plea and trial. Conditions remain the same.”

Joseph was arrested and charged with trespassing.

He told the Sunday Mirror he was looking for a toilet after the match when a security guard sent him in the direction of the players’ tunnel.

After taking a wrong turn, he found himself in the changing room where, he says, he told David Beckham: “David, we’ve spent a lot of money getting here. This is a disgrace. What are you going to do about it?”

His sister Sylvia Higgins, 44, told the Daily Mail: “He’s been made a scapegoat by the South African police. We won’t stop fighting until we get him out of there. I want our government to help him. The whole family can’t stop crying at the moment. This has got completely out of hand now.”

Brigadier de Beer said: “The fan who entered the England team’s dressing room on Friday night after the England-Algeria match, Mr Pavlos Joseph, appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court for the second time today.”

Joseph was arrested at about 10.30am on Sunday at the Bay Hotel in Camps Bay after a police investigation into the incident.

The intrusion, minutes after Princes William and Harry left, prompted the Football Association to make an official complaint to FIFA.

Mortgage adviser Joseph, a life-long England and Manchester United supporter, told the Sunday Mirror that, when Beckham asked him who he was, he responded: “I’m Pavlos and I actually need the toilet.”

He said he then addressed the players, sitting on benches with towels around their waists.

“I told them ‘That was woeful and not good enough’. The room was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. The players’ chins were on their chests — they looked pretty ashamed.”