WORLD CUP USA '94: SEMIFINALS : Spotlight : TOO-TIGHT SECURITY

By HELENE ELLIOTT

July 14, 1994 12 AM PT

French soccer star Eric Cantona, in Pasadena to do commentary for a French TV network, was briefly handcuffed by police and threatened with arrest before a FIFA official intervened and defused the situation.

Jim Trecker, the chief press officer for World Cup, said the problem concerned an apparent misunderstanding over where Cantona was supposed to sit. It was worsened by a language barrier “and became a tad emotional,” Trecker said.

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Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

WORLD CUP USA ‘94: SEMIFINALS : Spotlight : TOO-TIGHT SECURITY

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