Guidance

User guide to football-related arrests and banning orders statistics, England and Wales

Published 28 September 2023

Applies to England and Wales

This guide provides additional information to support the Football-related arrests, banning orders and related statistics, England and Wales.

Details of upcoming publications can be found on the statistics release calendar.

1. Uses of the data

These statistics are used by a range of users to monitor trends in football-related arrests and banning orders, and related statistics, in England and Wales. Specific uses of the data are included below.

Informing the general public

Figures on football-related arrests and banning orders, and related statistics, are used by the media and the public for information on and to scrutinise season-on-season trends and comparisons across leagues and clubs.

The figures on levels and trends in football-related arrests and banning orders, and related statistics, are routinely requested via parliamentary questions (PQs) and freedom of information (FOI) requests.

Policy making and monitoring

The figures provide a national and club level picture of football-related arrests and banning orders and are used by policy makers and advisors to monitor the trends in these statistics.

2. Football-related arrests and banning orders

Definition

Football banning orders
A football banning order (FBO) is a civil order which may be made by a court to help prevent violence or disorder at, or in connection, with regulated football matches.

The court must make a FBO where an offender has been convicted of a relevant offence (for example, an offence specified in Schedule 1 to the Football Spectators Act 1989), unless the court considers there are particular circumstances relating to the offence or to the offender which would make it unjust in all the circumstances to do so. Where the court does not make a banning order it must state in open court the reasons for not doing so.

The police, British Transport Police (BTP) or Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) may apply to the court to make a FBO for a person who has at any time caused or contributed to football-related violence or disorder, whether in the UK or abroad.

An individual with a FBO cannot attend regulated football matches in the UK. In addition, during a ‘control period’ for an overseas regulated football match or tournament, the enforcing authority (Football Banning Orders Authority, FBOA, part of UK Football Policing Unit) can issue a notice to a person who is subject to a FBO, requiring that they report to a local police station and surrender their passport. A FBO may impose any additional requirements the court sees fit in relation to any regulated football matches.

A FBO lasts between 3 and 10 years. Breaching the terms of an order is a criminal offence, punishable by a maximum sentence of 6 months in prison, an unlimited fine, or both.

Although in general one FBO is made for one individual, the number of existing banning orders is not necessarily the same as the number of individuals with a FBO. An individual can be subject to more than one banning order. Furthermore, a banned individual may follow more than one football club so their FBO would appear in relation to each football club in the figures, although the number of persons that this applies to is small.

A FBO can be made in 2 ways:

• at a hearing following a conviction for a football-related offence
• on application to a court from the police or CPS (in which case the individual will not necessarily have been arrested)

The time from an arrest to the imposition of a FBO can vary in length given an order may only be imposed by a court. For example, an individual arrested during the 2022 to 2023 football season would be included in the 2022 to 2023 arrest figures but may not be made subject to a FBO until sometime later, meaning the FBO would form part of the figures of a future year’s release.

Football banning orders were first introduced in 2000 and comparable data are available from the 2010 to 2011 football season onwards.

Football-related arrests
Football-related arrests are those to which Schedule 1 of the Football Spectators Act 1989 applies. This includes football-specific offences (such as pitch incursion and throwing missiles inside a stadium) and a range of generic public order offences committed in connection with a regulated football match (at any place within a period of 24 hours either side of a regulated football match). From 1 July 2022, online and remote football-related hate crime offences were added to Schedule 1 (the relevant time period for such offences is longer than 24 hours). This means a FBO can be made following a conviction for these offences.

Regulated football matches include domestic football matches involving English and Welsh clubs in the top 6 levels of men’s English football (Premier League to National League North and South), the Cymru Premier, Women’s Super League and FA Women’s Championship, matches involving the national teams of England and Wales, and some associated age group matches (under 18 and above).

From 1 July 2022, the definition of a ‘regulated football match’ included matches in which one or both teams represent a club that is a member of the FA Women’s Super League or the FA Women’s Championship (matches involving such clubs against overseas opposition were already included). Prior to this date, data relating to these matches were not included in the statistics.

From 17 November 2022, possession of class A drugs when entering, attempting to enter or inside a stadium, was added to Schedule 1 of the 1989 Act. This means a FBO can also be made following conviction for these offences.

Arrests in England and Wales related to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar are included in the 2022 to 2023 season release. This is the first release where arrests such as these (where the match is overseas but the arrests occurred in England and Wales) have been included due to improved recording and reporting practices.

Data coverage

Effects of COVID-19

A range of restrictions relating to the COVID-19 pandemic began on 12 March 2020. Some figures presented for the 2019 to 2020 football season and 2020 to 2021 football season will have been affected by this, and therefore comparisons with these seasons are likely to reflect temporary changes in the football data due to COVID-19, rather than permanent shifts in trends.

The restrictions relating to football during the COVID-19 period, as well as more general restrictions (for example, the closure of courts preventing the issue of any football banning orders), impacted on the total number of football banning orders, new football banning orders issued, football related arrests and incidents relating to specific matches.

Football banning orders

Banning orders data are submitted to the FBOA, as enforcing authority, by courts in England and Wales or the CPS. Following the court making a FBO, it is required to notify the FBOA.

Reference dates for extracting data on new football banning orders issued are as close as possible to the season dates of 1 August to 31 July, and as at 1 August for total banning orders in place at the end of the season. Minor exceptions have included the 2021 to 2022 and 2022 to 2023 football seasons due to the 2022 Qatar World Cup in November and December 2022. In the 2022 to 2023 season, reference dates for new banning orders issued in this period were 29 July 2022 to 31 July 2023.

The small variation in data extraction dates are not considered to have any impact on season-on-season comparisons. See the data tables for extraction dates for each season.

Once all data has been received and collated by UKFPU, UKFPU officials carry out a sense check to highlight values within the dataset that vary greatly from the others (outliers) and possible errors. These are queried with the respective police dedicated football officer (DFO).

The data is then supplied to Home Office statisticians by UKFPU, who produce the annual statistics.

Football-related arrests

Statistics on football-related arrests are submitted by the 43 Home Office police forces in England and Wales, and BTP, to the UKFPU.

BTP officers may escort trains before and after matches, and deploy to stations where large numbers of fans, or fans from different or rival teams, are expected.

The data is supplied to Home Office statisticians by UKFPU, see ‘Quality assurance and processing’ for more information.

3. Other arrests

Definition

‘Other arrests’ at football matches are those not covered by Schedule 1 of the Football Spectators Act 1989. This includes offences such as the possession of class B drugs (for example cannabis) and theft.

Data source

The data is derived from arrests submitted by the 43 Home Office police forces in England and Wales to the UKFPU.

Data quality

‘Other arrests’ are not available by offence type due to incomplete records. DFOs can enter a description of the ‘other arrest’ offence type in a text box on the football database, but this is not a mandatory field and a proportion of these are incomplete.

4. Online hate crime connected to football

Data on online hate crime connected to football have been collected since January 2022.

Definition

Online hate crime connected to football is defined as any electronic communication that appears to breach the law on protected characteristics that is directed towards, for example, a player, manager, coach, club, football authority, match official or football personality, where there is a clear link to football. To constitute a criminal allegation, the suspected offences must have been reported to an authorising body such as Kick It Out, the FA, UEFA or a police force by an individual, or by a third party specifically working on behalf of that individual. There may be exceptions to this process in certain cases.

Once incidents are reported to a relevant body, they are referred to UKFPU. UKFPU then work with a senior investigating officer (SIO) to assess whether the incident passes a series of ‘threshold tests’, which include considering whether the content of the post is grossly offensive, the time and location it was made and the evidence available. If the incident passes the threshold tests, UKFPU allocate the incident to the police force where the person identified as responsible resides who then record it as a hate crime and investigate further, with the aim of achieving a judicial outcome.

Content threshold

The majority of offences under investigation are considered under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 or Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988. The content of the message must be determined to be grossly offensive, and cross the high threshold necessary to protect freedom of expression, including unwelcome freedom of expression.

Time and space threshold

Only posts made about the following will be considered for investigation by UKFPU as an online hate crime connected to football:

• posts that relate to football players who play their trade in England and Wales (Premier League, Championship, League 1, League 2, National League (National Division, North and South), Women’s Super League and Women’s Championship) or play for the national teams of England and Wales
• posts about football clubs, authorities and their stakeholders that are generic but not aimed at an individual
• posts about high profile club officials providing they are related to the running of the club
• posts about players from other countries involved in matches played in England or Wales
• posts about football authorities, match officials or personalities involved with televising the matches

Evidence

There must be a clear attribution to the first generation image of the post (for example, a screen shot available) which fully displays the content of the post, and a unique identifier. The evidence must satisfy the Office for Communications Data Authorisations and be admissible in court during any future prosecutions.

Some allegations of online hate crime connected to football may not be referred to a relevant football body or DFO and instead dealt with at a local police force level. These cases would not be included within these statistics. In addition, posts that do not pass the threshold tests will be for local police to consider in liaison with UKFPU, and do not form part of these statistics.

Data quality

Statistics on online hate crime connected to football were included for the first time in the Football related arrests and banning orders, 2021 to 2022 release and have been designated as experimental statistics, to acknowledge that they are new and that further development of the data collection and quality assurance processes is needed.

5. Reported incidents of football-related anti-social behaviour, violence and disorder

Definition

The data collected includes reported incidents of football-related anti-social behaviour, violence and disorder involving supporters in connection with regulated matches in England and Wales.

The data includes:

• football clubs competing in the top five English divisions
• English Cup competitions
• European Cups
• international team matches played in England or Wales
• pre-season friendlies
• FA Women’s Super League (From 1 July 2022)
• FA Women’s Championship (From 1 July 2022)
• women’s internationals
• women’s matches in European competitions (for example UEFA Women’s Champions League)

The data does not include:

• international away matches
• European away matches
• incidents recorded by BTP
• pre-season overseas away matches
• Scottish matches

Incidents are included if they are 24 hours before or after the advertised or actual start of a regulated match, (with the exception of incidents of online hate crime connected to football) and include those that occur inside or outside of the football stadium.

The incidents may be related to arrests and or banning orders, but it is not possible to link the data using the underlying data sources.

Data source

The data is extracted from the UKFPU’s football database and is taken from reports of incidents submitted by police DFOs. Where the DFO is not present at a football match, for example, at ‘Police Free’ matches, the DFO will gather information from a variety of sources, of which include partner organisations such as The FA and Kick It Out.

Data quality

Figures on incidents in this report are the number of football matches where an incident was reported to have occurred, and not the number of individual incidents. Multiple incidents may take place at one match.

6. Quality assurance and processing

These statistics are compiled by Home Office statisticians who have worked closely with the UKFPU to scrutinise and quality assure the data. These checks follow the QAAD guidance (Quality Assurance of Administrative Data) and include:

• identifying duplicate data
• ensuring the data provided is complete, or as close as possible, given the recording capacity of the database (for example, ensuring home and away teams are specified and that each record has incident and match details) and working with UKFPU to correct the data where possible
• taking a sample of records to compare the free text report summary against the incidents details
• querying contradictory data (for example, where the team supported contradicts location of game, and incorrect offence types) and working with UKFPU to correct the data where possible
• investigating substantial changes in figures compared with the previous year
• making sure data quality and checks are explained to users and what effect these have on the statistics

Following checks with UKFPU, data tables are compared by a second statistician against the checked data. The prepared text is also checked against the tables. Statisticians are responsible for checking that the commentary appropriately describes the trends seen in the data and is not biased.

Statisticians in the Home Office will continue to work with UKFPU to further improve the quality of the football-related arrests and banning order statistics.

7. Rounding

Data is provided unrounded in the data tables to provide details for users. However, caution should be used when comparing small differences between time periods.

Percentages greater than 1% are presented to the nearest per cent. All percentages less than 1% are rounded to the nearest significant figure, for example 0.43% would be presented as 0.4%.

8. Forthcoming and previous statistical releases

Frequency of release: Annual

Publications are pre-announced on the Home Office statistics release calendar.

Previous statistical releases are available on the football-related arrests and banning orders statistics collection page.

9. Feedback and enquiries

We are keen to improve the accessibility of our documents. If you have any problems or feedback relating to accessibility, or general enquiries, please email: PolicingStatistics@homeoffice.gov.uk.

9.1 Media enquiries via Home Office news desk

Telephone: 0300 123 3535