Rowland Stone, whose firm Tyler Security now works with several top-tier clubs, told Telegraph Sport of an urgency to tackle “a deterioration of public order resources within grounds”.

Disjointed relations between police and football authorities were one of the main failures cited by Baroness Casey in her review of fan disorder for the Euro 2020 final.

“The reduction of policing inside grounds hasn’t helped at all,” said Stone, an ex-Met Police dog handling boss. Legislation means clubs are only expected to pay a fee for policing inside the stadium and on their land and, as a result, Stone has seen clubs become increasingly reliant on their own staff.  

“The stewards’ powers are very, very limited, other than ejection,” he added. “As we all saw at Wembley, the stewards have got no powers to retain or restrain. They’re probably £9-an-hour, if they’re lucky. Why would they want to get beaten up?”

Police have repeatedly called on clubs to foot a greater proportion of policing bills around stadiums. In London, clubs paid less than four per cent of the £8m it took to police football matches in the capital for the season prior to the pandemic.

“I’m not saying everything is at fault, but the whole thing generally as a package has deteriorated because we don’t have the police presence in grounds,” said Stone.

Professor Gabriel Scally, president of the epidemiology and public health section of the Royal Society of Medicine, added: “We have to be careful about encouraging copycat behaviour, but I think the whole country has been under an enormous amount of stress for two years now… so I’m not surprised that there are problems of disorder.

“There is always a temptation at times of trouble to to rely on the drugs of solace. So I’m not surprised that people have to some degree turned to drugs or are taking more drugs.”

Fan disorder is on the increase across the land – and here are the reasons why

By Jeremy Wilson

For Tracy Brown, a Chelsea fan, the feeling that football stadiums have become angrier and more abusive places since the end of lockdown is now unmistakable. “It’s like people have come back to football and are letting all their frustrations out,” she says. “And it is all forms of abuse – it is very worrying.”

Brown is the chair of Chelsea Pride and has been successfully working with the Football Association to convince the Crown Prosecution Service that the persistent “rent boy” chant, which has been aimed all season at various Chelsea players, is now recognised as a homophobic hate crime. Stamford Bridge was separately also the scene on Sunday of Chelsea defender Antonio Rudiger being struck by cigarette lighters. Two men were arrested.

There were also arrests at the match between West Ham United and Manchester United, including one on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker, and a teenager has been charged with assault after two Aston Villa players were hit by a bottle during Everton’s 1-0 defeat.