Guidance

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

Updated 26 September 2024

Applies to England and Wales

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

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.

1.1 Informing the general public

The media and public use the football-related arrests, banning orders and related statistics for information and to scrutinise season-on-season trends and comparisons across leagues and clubs. The figures on levels and trends in football-related arrests, banning orders and related statistics, are routinely requested via parliamentary questions (PQs) and Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

1.2 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.

New football policing database

In the 2023 to 2024 football season, the system used by UKFPU to record details of football related arrests, incidents and football banning orders was replaced with a new database.

Various measures were taken by UKFPU and the Home Office to maintain data quality, including data quality and duplication checks, and comparing data from both systems and previous seasons. Whilst these measures were able to identify and rectify some migration issues, the quality of details recorded, during the transition phase in particular, are subject to inaccuracies inherent within all large-scale recording systems.

2. Football-related arrests and banning orders

2.1 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.

A FBO can be made in 2 ways:

• at a hearing following a conviction for a football-related offence

The court must make a FBO where an offender has been convicted of a relevant offence (that is 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.

• on application to a court from the police or CPS (in which case the individual will not necessarily have been arrested)

The police, including British Transport Police (BTP), or Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) may apply to the court to make a FBO against a person who has at any time caused or contributed to football-related violence or disorder, whether in the UK or abroad. The Court has to be satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to believe that making a banning order would help to prevent violence or disorder at or in connection with any regulated football matches.

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 include 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 an individual is subject to one FBO, the number of existing FBOs is not necessarily the same as the number of individuals with a FBO. An individual can be subject to more than one FBO. 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.

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 2023 to 2024 football season would be included in the 2023 to 2024 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 is 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 entering the pitch and throwing missiles inside a stadium), online and remote football-related hate crime offences, 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).

Regulated football matches in England and Wales include 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 Women’s Championship, matches involving the national teams, matches such as the UEFA Champions League Final and some associated age group matches (under 18 and above).

Regulated matches outside England and Wales include matches involving the national teams of England and Wales, and 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 Women’s Championship.

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 Women’s Super League or the Women’s Championship (matches involving such clubs against overseas opposition were already included). Prior to this date, data relating to these matches was 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 a conviction for these offences.

Arrests in England and Wales related to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar were included in the 2022 to 2023 season release. This was the first release where arrests such as these (where the match is overseas but the arrests occurred in England and Wales) were included due to improved recording and reporting practices. Arrests in England and Wales related to the 2024 Euros in Germany are included in the 2023 to 2024 season release.

2.2 Data coverage

Effects of COVID-19

Some figures presented for the 2019 to 2020 and 2020 to 2021 football season were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic; 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 is 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. In the 2023 to 2024 season, reference dates for new banning orders issued in this period were 1 August 2023 to 31 July 2024.

Small variations 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.

Data is supplied to Home Office statisticians by UKFPU, see Chapter 6. Quality assurance and processing for more information.

Reference dates for extracting data on football-related arrests are generally 1 July to 1 June. When there are international tournaments, such as the World Cup or Euros, the end date is extended to include those competitions.

3. Other arrests

3.1 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.

3.2 Data source

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

3.3 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 has been collected since January 2022.

4.1 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 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 a relevant 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 police 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. After the initial investigation, and providing 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, Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 or Sections 179 and 181 of the Online Safety Act 2023. 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, North and South divisions), 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 officiating, broadcasting or reporting on the matches

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.

4.2 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 are designated as official statistics in development, to acknowledge that they are new and that further development of the data collection and quality assurance process is needed.

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

5.1 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 5 English divisions
• English Cup competitions
• European Cups
• international team matches played in England or Wales
• pre-season friendlies
• Women’s Super League (From 1 July 2022)
• Women’s Championship (From 1 July 2022)

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.

5.2 Data source

The data is extracted from the UKFPU’s football database and 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.

5.3 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

Statistics on football-related arrests, banning orders and related statistics are official statistics. Official statistics are statistics produced by a Crown body (such as government departments or devolved administrations), or a body listed within an Official Statistics Order. Official statistics producers work to the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the code of practice for statistics. These statistics are produced by Home Office statisticians in accordance with the Home Office’s statement of compliance with the code of practice for statistics which covers our policy on revisions and other matters. The chief statistician, and the head of profession for statistics, report to the national statistician with respect to all professional statistical matters and oversee all Home Office official statistics products with respect to the code of practice for statistics, and are responsible for their timing, content and methodology.

Quality checks on the data 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 incident 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 percent. 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