The Football Association has defended its decision to sell 18,000 tickets to Poland fans for Tuesday's crunch game at Wembley.
Under FIFA rules, visiting teams are allowed 10 per cent of the seats available in qualification matches.
Given that Wembley holds 90,000, that entitles Poland to 9,000 tickets but the FA has decided to give the Poles 18,000.
Given the huge importance of Tuesday's game, the decision has drawn criticism from some supporters but the organisation says it had to increase the away allocation as it feared Polish fans would end up causing a health and safety risk by buying tickets in the home section.
"The FA, working with the Polish FA, have provided 18,000 tickets to Polish supporters," an FA spokesman said.
"With high demand for tickets from the large Polish community in England the FA took the decision, based on safety grounds, to ensure Polish fans were allocated space in a specific area of the ground rather than attempting to buy tickets in home areas.
"Tickets in the home areas have been restricted to previous buyers only, with no tickets now remaining for this fixture.
"This is the same process that was employed for the successful Scotland and Republic of Ireland fixtures earlier this year."
It is understood that the FA took the decision to double the Polish allowance in consultation with the police.
England left-back Leighton Baines has no problem with the move.
Source: PA
