In a poll by IBOPE, commissioned by and published yesterday in the sports daily lance, 61 per cent of 3,000 soccer fans surveyed said they stayed away from matches because of hooliganism.

``The problem (of hooliganism) is much the same as in England. There is a very active minority of fans involved,'' said Col. Silvio Roberto Villar, who heads policing of Sao Paulo soccer stadiums, in an interview with radio station CBN.

Ideally, supporters should not to wear their teams' colours when leaving stadiums in case they are attacked. It's an absurd situation but that is the state of things.''

Since the early 1990s, fan clubs of club teams known throughout South America as Barras Bravas have clashed sporadically in Brazil, causing the deaths of two teen-agers in the last three years.

Last season, a youth waskilled in a street fight following a game between Rio teams Flamengo and Vasco Da Gama.

In Sao Paulo, a 16-year-old died during a 1995 stadium riot involving fans of Sao Paulo FC and Palmeiras, prompting a judge to ban fan club members from city stadiums.

Since then, security cameras have been installed in the famed Maracana Stadium here to clamp down on violence and meeting rooms for fan clubs have been shut.

The IBOPE survey found the other major reason keeping fans away from games is high ticket prices, cited by 16 per cent as a problem. Fourteen per cent said poorly organised leagues were the chief reason they missed matches.