AJAX fans are so notorious that they will have to be segregated from each other at next Wednesday's Champions League qualifying second leg tie with Celtic.

Instead of a line of stewards and police separating both sets of supporters, there will have to be a number of breaks splitting up the Dutch travelling band.

This suggests the authorities believe the tie carries a real threat of disorder.

Some Celtic fans already have painful memories of their team's visit to Holland last week, when Martin O'Neill's players secured a 3-1 win.

First, they endured bottle-throwing by a section of the Ajax support, then suffered brutal punishment at the hands of Dutch riot police, who lashed out with batons.

Celtic are already conducting an inquiry into the way their supporters were treated at the ground and have not ruled out a formal protest to Fifa.

Next week's unprecedented security arrangements at Celtic Park are because of the rival 'tribes' that follow Ajax.

In addition, the regulations in Holland allow for a public sale of tickets, rather than restricting them to season ticket holders.

This, obviously, means that trouble-makers find it easy to get their hands on briefs.

A spokesman for Celtic said yesterday: ''We are faced with a rather unusual security plan for the Ajax fans. However, we will put anything in place if it limits the chances of hooliganism.''

It is expected 1000 Dutch fans will make the trip to Scotland, barely 10% of the Celtic support which descended on Amsterdam.

However, the game is a

sell-out despite being live on television.

Meanwhile, Ajax are set to adopt an ultra-defensive approach at Parkhead to avoid another hammering.

Manager Co Adriaanse has ditched the club's traditional attacking policy and used five at the back and two defensive midfielders in their 2-1 friendly loss to Italian champions Roma at the weekend.

Adriaanse said: ''The emphasis should be more on defence and I believe this system worked well for a first try. Roma are an attacking team but they created hardly any chances from open play. We will use this system again in matches against the top European sides.''