The Football Association’s Head of Stadia, Safety and Security, Chris Whalley, and Bryan Drew, Director of the UK Football Policing Unit, are in Chile this week to lead a symposium on football-related violence.

The event is the second to take place in South America this year, as part of The FA’s co-operation agreement with CONMEBOL.

Whalley and Drew covered the same subject back in 2004 in Santiago and Chilean Football Federation president Harold Mayne-Nicholls is keen to use the pair’s vast experience this time around to influence government officials and police authorities to formulate a co-ordinated strategy to deal with football violence in stadia around the country.

The symposium will take place at the University of Concepcion, in the city of the same name, and will be attended by over 120 delegates including officials from the Chilean Football Federation and leagues, legislators, national and local government members, Chilean police officers and other stakeholders.

Alberto Almirall, programme coordinator for CONMEBOL, said: "When signing the co-operation agreement with The FA, CONMEBOL president Dr Nicolas Leoz made a valuable tool for increasing professionalism in football in South America and a lot of countries in our continent are already taking advantage of the programme.

“We are preparing something special for Chile on football related violence, destined to help them plant the seeds for developing an effective plan of action to prevent and fight football violence.”

Whalley added: "We usually present the subject of safety in stadia in a seminar with a more didactic focus. Being that we already delivered this seminar in Chile back in 2004, we decided to change the focus this time and make it very interactive, with lots of local participation and debate.

"We think it will be more useful to our Chilean colleagues."