Football Related Arrest Figures Remain Low

Last updated : 24 November 2016 By CNS Sport

The amount of people arrested at a football match remains low, according to new figures released by the Home Office today.

There were 1,895 football-related arrests from July 2015 to July 2016, although no figures to say how many were actually convicted or cautioned.

Football Supporters Federation caseworker Amanda Jacks said: "It's good to football arrests follow a downward trend over recent years and pleasing to see them remain at historically low levels.

"Football fans' behaviour is improving, the policing is getting better and we're seeing fans becoming more involved in match-day planning - all have these factors have ensured that disorder at football matches is very rare.

"Football related arrests are dwarfed by other large-scale public events, at T-In-The-Park festival in Scotland attended by 70,000 revellers this summer there were 54 arrests. This is around one arrest per 1,300 festival-goers, but at football it's one arrest for every 20,000.

"It's important to understand that football fans face arrest for actions or behaviour that don't exist as offences in any other walk of life," Amanda said.

"Again, this demonstrates how misleading some headlines about hooliganism can be and how safe football is." 

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