New figures reveal an 18% decrease in football-related arrests to continue the downward trend but fans are still unfairly sent to court

For the third consecutive season, football arrests have fallen and have reached their lowest level on record – although you probably will not read about it elsewhere, as football arrest figures only really seem to grab attention when they go up.

Statistics released by the Home Office on Thursday show that the 2014-15 campaign saw an 18% decrease in arrests (-400) on the previous season (which itself was a record low). There were 1,873 football-related arrests, with 4.9 arrests per 100,000 spectators. Public disorder (34%) and alcohol-related (22%) made up the majority of them.

The Joy of Six: quickly-taken football set pieces Read more

That’s about one arrest per 20,000 football fans. To put that into context there were 75 arrests at Glastonbury this year out of 135,000 people, so one arrest for every 1,800. People are 11 times as likely to be arrested at Glastonbury as at football. Of course the overwhelming majority of people who go to Glastonbury stay out of trouble and have a great time, and the same is true of football. Isolated incidents of unpleasant behaviour happen, but they are very unusual.

However, arrests don’t give us the full picture as they aren’t convictions. The Football Supporters’ Federation would be interested to know how many of these arrests result in convictions or fixed-penalty notices. That information is not available.

While helping fans in trouble with the authorities we still see far too many prosecutions ending up in court that arguably don’t pass the public interest test. Many fans that we help feel they are being put through the criminal justice system only because their arrest occurred in a football context.

We work with Melanie Cooke at Football Law Associates to secure fairer representation for football fans and she backs this up: “We have noticed an increase in fans arrested for the first time being prosecuted in cases where they would have been eligible for a caution or out-of-court disposal had it had not been football-related.”

“Football-related” covers 24 hours either side of a match. Arrested with a match ticket in your pocket travelling home hours after a match? It’s enough to deem it football-related.

Alcohol-related offences make up a significant proportion of the arrests and football fans get unique treatment in this respect. Certain crimes, such as having alcohol on a coach travelling to a game, drinking alcohol in sight of the pitch or being drunk entering a stadium are football specific. They would not occur in other walks of life and, effectively, this means people are criminalised because of the sport they follow.

Since 4 September 2014, 484 new football banning orders have been issued, a decrease of 29% (-194) when compared with the previous year. As arrests fall, over time, you would expect the number of football banning orders to fall and there has been a steady decline in the total number of active football banning orders over the last five years, falling by almost a third (31%) from a high of 3,174 as of 29 November 2011.

Despite the fall in the number of banning orders issued, we’re still seeing police asking for football banning orders as a matter of routine, regardless of the offence or previous convictions. Even if you have no criminal history and end up before the courts following a football-related arrest we are hearing that the police will almost always ask the court to consider a football banning order application regardless of the risk you pose.

Once you have a banning order you have to surrender your passport and/or report to a police station either side of a game involving England or Wales and if your club happens to be playing in Europe. It does not matter if you have never followed your club or country abroad, your passport will still be taken during those periods.

We know there can be no room for complacency but the decline of football-related arrests is noteworthy. Although sections of the media hype up football-related disorder, match-going fans know the reality – that the days of the stereotypical football hooligan are over, and we believe the statistics back that up.

Amanda Jacks works for the Football Supporters’ Federation leading its Watching Football Is Not A Crime! campaign