Sign up to our free newsletter for the top North Wales stories sent straight to your e-mail Sign up now! Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

The laws used to control football fans at matches is "based on lies", claims the man in charge of policing policy in North Wales.

Arfon Jones, North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner and Wrexham AFC season-ticket holder, believes football fans are being unfairly singled out by police forces.

He reckons they are being "stigmatised" for an increase in violence in wider society as a whole - and disagrees with attempts by police to force through legislation that would increase policing costs for football matches.

He claims that for smaller clubs like Wrexham and Chester these higher policing fees could have severe effects and even threaten their existence.

So called "bubble match" restrictions on the cross-border derby which were in place for four years, ended in 2017.

He claimed better stewarding and reducing the amount of officers will improve the atmosphere at games.

(Image: Mandy Jones)

Mr Jones, a former police officer himself, claimed some of the legislation surrounding policing at matches came in the wake of the Hillsborough tragedy.

He said: “Much of the legislation around controlling fans at football matches is based on what happened at Hillsborough and everything that was originally said about Hillsborough has been found to be a pack of lies.

“So as a result we’ve got current legislation that’s based on falsehoods and football is still paying the price.”

According to Mr Jones, the police service have failed in the higher courts to get the football industry to pay more for policing football and are now seeking to change legislation to enable a different charging structure.

(Image: Robert Parry-Jones)

He recently put forward his views at an All-Party Parliamentary Group on Policing and Security, challenging a presentation by the police chiefs' lead on football, Deputy Chief Constable, Mark Roberts.

Mr Jones said: "Mark Roberts wants to charge more but what we need to do is to treat football matches as events and not as public order situations and there should be better engagement with fans and better training of stewards rather than just over-resourcing at matches."

(Image: Daily Post Wales)

He said when he looked at the policing for the Chester v Wrexham "bubble matches" he felt toning down policing would reduce tensions.

Mr Jones added: "The police say they need to charge more due to increasing violence but the trend of increasing violence is in society as a whole since Brexit.

"All football does is reflect what goes on in society and there’s an alternative view that if the police spent more time training club stewards and fans then violence would be reduced and it is still at far lower levels than it was in the dark days of the 70s and 80s.

"We’ve seen stewards at matches getting more aggressive even to the extent of throwing punches at players.

"Football is being stigmatised by what is a problem in society as a whole and because of that clubs like Wrexham and Chester will face increased charges which are neither necessary nor fair and which could cause them severe financial hardship."