No shame in defeat - the decline of football violence
4 min read
Football didn’t come home – and the 30 years of hurt will stretch, at least to 60. But there was pride in England’s Euro 24 defeat, not least because of the exemplary behaviour of fans.
The United Kingdom Football Policing Unit declared that England fans in Germany conducted themselves “extremely well” throughout the tournament. Scotland’s Tartan Army, too, came and went without negative incident.
In England’s case, that is in marked contrast to the shameful scenes that have marred past international competitions, both club and country.
Such episodes led to significant reform, including the Football Spectators Act of 1989, which stopped hooligans from travelling to international matches. A blanket ban on standing in the terraces was put in place for all 20 clubs in 1994.
New laws coupled with improved stewarding, culture change and the use of CCTV have helped bring football-related crime down dramatically.
Crime at football games has remained low and stable for the last decade, while alcohol-related arrests have fallen from 25 per cent of all arrests in 2013/14 to nine per cent in 2022/23.
Home Office statistics found there was an 11 per cent like-for-like decrease in football-related arrests between 2021/22 (2,198) and 2022/23 (1,963).
Games with records of anti-social behaviour, violence and disorder were down by six per cent compared to 2021/22 season. Prior to the pandemic, arrests at football games had more than halved within a decade, and more than 60 per cent of games with ‘incidents’ were classified of ‘low severity’.
Football-related crime spiked after lockdown, and appeared to be at a 10-year high during the 2022 Qatar World Cup. Yet the uptick in figures was partly misleading as, for the first time, the government included arrests of those who had been watching the World Cup on TV.
The government has also begun to introduce arrests for Class A drug possession in their football-related arrest statistics, which skews the figures upwards.
Michael Brunskill, head of communications at the Football Supporters’ Association (FSA), a fan body, says the game had achieved a “low point” for poor and abusive behaviour.
“Where there have been issues, we try and have most impact around younger fans who don’t understand the laws,” he says.
“We try to tell them that, while pyrotechnics may look good on camera, they are a danger.
“Where I have an issue around this is reports that football arrests have gone up. I would 100 per cent dispute that, and say the Home Office figures were misleading.”
Indeed some lobby groups have questioned whether government authorities had cracked down on disorder too harshly. Football Banning Orders (FBOs), which are made after someone has committed a criminal office at a match, can last between three and 10 years.
Failure to follow this can lead to a six-month prison sentence.
The state can force fans to hand over their passport when England are playing abroad, even if they have never followed their national team outside of the UK.
Success brings its own challenges; while more women and people from ethnic minorities are going to games, more needs doing to protect them from abuse.
As more women and girls get into football, there is a greater need than ever to create a safe and inclusive culture
A third of all fans over the last five years were women, while 16 per cent were classified as ethnic minorities. Top-flight football also saw an increase in the number of female match officials, according to a House of Commons report.
Kick It Out, an anti-discrimination group, reported a 400 per cent increase in reports of sexism and misogyny during the 2022-23 season, however. Its next report on discrimination, which is expected to be published over the summer, will show another increase but on a much smaller scale.
Hate Crime was recorded at more than one in 10 matches between 2022/23, according to the Home Office.
One reason for this could be that high-profile incidents on social media, where female pundits and players have been abused, have helped normalise sexism within the game.
Hollie Varney, the COO of Kick It Out, says: “As more women and girls get into football, there is a greater need than ever to create a safe and inclusive culture in the game and the government also has an important role to play by showing a stronger commitment to solving this issue through policy action.”
Yet it is also likely to be the case that this spike and urgency in addressing the issue is partly because more women and men are comfortable to report verbal abuse at games.
Football is changing for the better – and one day it really will come home.
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