The Premier League and English Football League have begun an urgent review of crowd behaviour following a wave of fan disorder.
The governing bodies wrote to their clubs to “identify any short and medium-term interventions that may be necessary” amid warnings football was in danger of “going back to the days of the Seventies and the Eighties”.
The letter, seen by Telegraph Sport, was sent following another weekend of trouble across the English game, culminating in a Leicester City supporter being charged with assaulting three Nottingham Forest players.
“The Premier League and EFL have, together, decided to carry out a mid-season review of crowd behaviour to determine whether there are any common patterns or issues across football clubs and in turn, how best to address any identified issues,” the letter read.
“The intention of this review is to identify any common trends in behaviour, to better understand your approach to any changes and to identify any short and medium-term interventions that may be necessary.”
Attached to the letter was a series of questions to which clubs were given until the end of the week to respond.
They read:
- In your experience, has there been an increase or change in incidents of anti-social behaviour and disorder this season, and if so, why? How has this compared to pre-Covid seasons?
- If there has been an increase in antisocial behaviour/disorder, which issues have increased, at what locations and from which groups of fans (including age groups)?
- What data do you collect on these incidents, how is it recorded and who do you share the data with? Please provide available data regarding incidents from this season.
- Has your club taken any new measures to combat antisocial behaviour and disorder issues? If so what are they and how successful have they been?
- How satisfied are you with the stewarding and policing at your stadium? How could it be improved?
- What support/measures could your club, the League or external agencies (Police, SGSA, government etc.) provide to reduce antisocial behaviour and disorder?
- How do you share good practice with other clubs and stakeholders? Do you see any risks in disclosing this information to other clubs and stakeholders?
- What are your views on the value of the League creating a central data repository with good practice and data being shared accordingly?”
The letter emerged shortly before police announced they had charged the fan who appeared to land a blow on Keinan Davis, the Aston Villa loanee, during Forest’s shock FA Cup fourth-round win over the holders. Davis was interviewed about the incident by police on Monday.
Cameron Toner, 19, of Leicester, was charged with three counts of common assault and going onto a playing area at a football match.
He was released on conditional bail – including a condition not to attend any football stadium on the date of any live football match – pending a hearing at Nottingham Magistrates’ Court on February 24.
Leicester had already promised to ban him for life, with Sunday’s incident also subject of an investigation by the Football Association.
Assistant Chief Constable Steve Cooper, of Nottinghamshire Police, said: “We continue to work closely with both football clubs who are supporting our investigation following this incident.
“Violence at football matches will not be tolerated. In this case Leicester City has said the individual involved will be subject to a lifetime ban from all Leicester City fixtures at home and away.
“I hope the actions taken serve as a warning to anyone else that violent behaviour at football matches is taken extremely seriously and could land them with hefty consequences.”
Arrests at football matches are the highest in years and this latest incident, in the first East Midlands derby since 2014, only increased concerns over the rise in trouble off the pitch.
In League One on Saturday, Bolton Wanderers’ 1-1 draw at Morecambe was temporarily stopped following an alleged racist remark from a home supporter.
Five Bolton fans were later arrested for offences including being drunk and disorderly, pitch encroachment and an assault on a police officer, after their team’s equaliser.
Two Rotherham United supporters were also arrested after an Accrington Stanley player was assaulted after a controversial penalty was awarded in the sides’ match.
Bolton manager Ian Evatt has warned football was in danger of “going back to the days of the Seventies and the Eighties”.
He added: “How are these supporters vetted? Are they checked, security checked? I don’t know. This is extremes, but any one of these could have a weapon.
“Would I be taking my kids to a football match at the moment? I’d have to have a lot of thought, to be honest, because we seem to be going backwards.”
Football fan disorder is on the increase across the land – and here are the reasons why
By Jeremy Wilson
Missiles being thrown at players; emergency workers being subject to alleged assaults; and, most recently, a fan arrested after appearing to attack a Nottingham Forest player during Sunday’s FA Cup tie at the City Ground.
A bad few weeks, or an increasingly worrying regression? The statistics certainly suggest the latter and bear out the wider anecdotal testimony.
Up to January 24, there had been 802 football-related arrests this season across the top five divisions in English football – a near 50 per cent increase since the most recent pre-lockdown figure in 2019-20. It was also the highest number of arrests since figures began being collated in 2015-16, with a particular rise among younger fans, and tallies with a comparable increase in reports of disorder.
Lockdown, it would seem, has shifted the goalposts, although not simply by potentially fostering greater pent-up anger and division. According to Prof Geoff Pearson, a senior lecturer in law at the University of Manchester, the abrupt 18-month break in football crowds was also the inevitable catalyst for important changes in both the make-up of fans and those paid to uphold public order.
“I’m hearing the same things from police, fan representatives and those working in stadium security,” said Prof Pearson.
“There has been an uptick in problematic behaviour – a great undercurrent of which tends to be more antisocial behaviour and low level disorder rather than organised fighting.
“I think at the start of the season there was a little giddy excitement about being at football stadiums, being in pubs and being back with friends. We also had quite a big turnover of fans. “The fan profiles look quite different to the start of 2020. We’ve not had a situation since the Second World War when those who really want to go to the football, can’t. Then, suddenly they are all let back in. In addition, you have tens of thousands of match-day fans no longer able to go, because of Covid, or one reason or another. There will have been a massive churn. A lot of those coming in will be irregular fans.
“They are not necessarily going to be as deterred from certain behaviours as fans who have been going week in and week out. Incidents like the bottle throwing and running on pitches are not things that regular season-ticket holders do because they will lose their season ticket and get a banning order.”
The influence of social media is another intriguing strand. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Twitter might forge valuable connections but they can also foster conflict and episodes of one-upmanship.
Fans now are frequently the stars of their own show and the value of some piece of content is often framed by how often it is shared. It is the subject of limited research, especially in a football context, although a pre-lockdown study by Durham University did find a correlation among young adults between exposure to content depicting ‘risky online behaviour’ and users’ own such behaviour. This specifically included episodes in relation to drink, drugs, violence and pranks.
The use and accessibility of cocaine has also been highlighted following Baroness Casey’s report into the shameful disorder involving England fans at the Euro 2020 final. She specifically also urged the Football Association to launch a campaign to force “a sea-change in attitudes towards supporter behaviours”.
