MOLDOVA: Armed riot police will be deployed for Scotland's World Cup qualifying match tonight in Moldova, but the Tartan Army need have no fears - the expected trouble is between home fans.
The government's decision to switch the match away from the national stadium in the breakaway republic of Trans Dnistre, to Kishinev, has infuriated ethnic Russians living there.
Now there are fears that tensions between Russians and ethnic Romanians, which exploded into war in 1992, will be rekindled at tonight's match being played in Moldova's capital, Kishinev.
Officially, Moldova's government, dominated by ethnic Romanians, says it cannot "guarantee security" for Scottish fans visiting the stadium, but in fact the decision marks the climax of a simmering "football war" which has raged for several years.
It began in the late 1990s when an ethnic Russian businessman, Victor Gusan, made a fortune and founded a football team, named Sheriff, in Tiraspol, Trans Dnistre's capital.
Gusan quickly became Moldova's equivalent of Roman Abramovich, lavishing huge sums on players that the rest of the impoverished league of this, Europe's poorest country, could not match.
Results came fast: Sheriff has won the league every season since 2001 and is on course to do it again this year. This has caused predictable howls of protest from teams in Romanian-speaking areas struggling to compete.
In this atmosphere, cross-border visits by Sheriff and the top ethnic Romanian team, Zimbru, have seen savage fan violence. Buses have been stoned and running battles break out when the teams meet - unhappily for local residents, four times each season.
This summer, inter-ethnic tensions broke out in Trans Dnistre, with the government demanding that Romanian-language schools switch from the Latin to the Cyrillic alphabet. Hundreds of pupils protested, blockading themselves inside the schools demanding to be allowed to be taught in their own language. Moldova's President Vladimir Voronin upped the ante, walking out of talks on the final status of the enclave.
Trans Dnistre then used militia units to block roads and railways, severing links across the river. With Russia backing Tiraspol and Romania backing the Moldovan government, the country braced for war.
Mediation from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe ended the crisis, at least temporarily. In September war nevertheless broke out - not with bullets, but with footballs, after the government declared it could not guarantee security for fans visiting Trans Dnistre.
An international match with Italy was switched from Tiraspol to the Republic stadium in Kishinev and, with the British embassy warning of "problematic" conditions for Scottish fans in Trans Dnistre, Scotland quickly followed suit.
This summer saw sport proclaimed at the Athens Olympics as a way of surmounting political hurdles. In Moldova, as Scottish fans are about to find out, it is seen as a way of creating them.