BBC spending thousands of pounds on riot training for World Cup staff

The BBC has ordered staff travelling to the World Cup to undergo special training in anticipation of rioting in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

It can be revealed that those heading to the tournament have been undertaking a mandatory “public order” course.

The course has involved role-playing possible scenarios, with staff warned in advance they could even be splattered with fake blood.

One such role-play has involved an employee being asked to behave like an angry protester.

Telegraph Sport has been told such training costs the BBC – and by extension licence-fee payers – £750 per person and that the total bill was likely to run into tens of thousands of pounds.

ITV, with which the corporation shares the television rights to the World Cup, is said to have no plans to order staff to undergo similarly intensive training.

The BBC is known to have put employees through such a course before the 2010 tournament in South Africa.

It is unclear whether staff underwent similar training before the three subsequent editions held in Brazil, Russia and Qatar, all countries with questionable public safety or human rights records.

BBC TV studio in Salford for early stages

The build-up to this summer’s tournament has been hit by violent protests in the US against President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants.

Only last week, Amnesty International and dozens of civil and human rights groups issued a “World Cup travel advisory”, warning visitors of “rising authoritarianism and increasing violence” linked with mass deportations carried out by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Days later, Trump himself was the target of a third assassination attempt in the past two years after a gunman stormed the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington.

In February, Mexico witnessed a wave of violence after the country’s most wanted man, drug cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes – known as “El Mencho” – was killed during a security operation to arrest him.

The BBC declined to comment but Telegraph Sport has been told the training is not in response to any one issue, that it is standard practice that staff working at events are appropriately prepared, and that robust measures are in place to safeguard their security throughout.

The corporation was also said to always seek to ensure maximum value for money for the licence fee payer.

The BBC has already chosen not to base its World Cup television studio in the US to save money, with presenters and pundits instead based in Salford until at least the latter stages of the tournament.