Posted on 27th September 2024
Football-related arrests 2023-24: Thoughts from the FSA
Yesterday the Home Office released the football-related arrests stats for last season and, similar to the previous season, they showed a slight increase. Rather than repeat the Home Office press release verbatim, we took some time to look at the numbers and our initial thoughts are laid out below:
What do they say about Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics? The Home Office has released its stats and we always try to put them into context… See the bit we’ve circled in red from the “football arrest stats”?
Almost 11% of this year’s “football arrest stats” were made up of people watching Euro 2024 on the TV in England or Wales (aka not matchgoers).
Many of them will probably never have been to a game in their lives and they certainly weren’t in the stands. How is that a legitimate “football arrest”? Are people arrested while watching music on the TV included in Glastonbury’s arrest figures? Obviously not. But football fans and clubs are somehow blamed because some idiot in a pub punched someone in an argument over a spilled pint while a football match took place hundreds of miles away in another country. (Also – remember that an arrest isn’t a conviction.)
The problem with this hyper focus on arrest tables is it makes football seem like a dangerous place, which kids and families should steer clear of, and that’s just not true. 47 million+ people attended domestic and international matches last season and there were 2,563 arrests – 5.5 arrests per 100,000 attendees.
We’d rather that figure was zero but at almost any sports event, street carnival or music festival there are going to be incidents so you’d expect them at football too – but it’s only football which gets this treatment by the Home Office. Then the media just copies and pastes it in their rush to get clicks on “CLUB X TOPS FOOTBALL ARREST TABLES” – there’s no proper analysis.
As matchgoers we’re the last group who wants to see troublemakers in stadiums for all the obvious reasons. We go with our friends and families to the match and don’t want it. But we do think the media should subject the data to better analysis and we don’t think it’s right to include in the football arrest stats people who aren’t even at the match. It makes no sense.
Taking out people arrested watching tournaments overseas (they never used to be counted) arrests are roughly where they were 10 years ago but we suppose that wouldn’t get as many clicks. Negative perceptions of supporters lead to bad law and poor treatment of matchgoers – and that’s something we’ll always push back on.
