IT’S A COP OUT

New call to get police back in our grounds

Football has gone too far in replacing police with stewards, it was claimed last night after the man who attacked aston Villa’s Jack Grealish was sent to prison for 14 weeks.

the Premier league’s director of policy, bill bush, said the idea of stadiums with no police presence — which many clubs are moving towards to save money — needs addressing.

bush said: ‘there is something iconic and symbolically important about the police uniform in the ground which, however many stewards you deploy, however well you train them, it’s never going to have that same effect.’ Stewards who

replace officers do not have the power to arrest and, Bush says, do not pose the same deterrent as an officer in police uniform. Half of all games in the top four leagues are now either entirely police-free or staffed only by a handful of police intelligence officers known as spotters. Violent disorder at games was up 24 per cent last year. The attack on Grealish, which yesterday saw 27-year-old Birmingham City fan Paul Mitchell jailed, prompted new scrutiny of that trend. There were no police in sight as Mitchell raced on to the St Andrew’s pitch and struck Grealish across the head. Britain’s top football police officer, Deputy Chief Constable Mark Roberts, told Sportsmail that the game was ‘beginning to the see the consequences of trading police for stewards’ and that it had become complacent about the need for professional officers. ‘Football paid agents £211million last year but they are gambling with their policing bill,’ he said. ‘For the cost of an average Premier League full back, the game could be made safer and not a drain on the public purse.’ The weekend also saw Manchester United’s Chris Smalling shoved by a fan, Gary Cooper, who was yesterday charged with common assault and going on to the Arsenal pitch. Rangers captain James Tavernier was confronted by a fan during Friday’s draw with Hibernian at Easter Road. Both Bush and Roberts said they were frustrated by the leniency of the courts in some such cases. Clubs felt the courts took the view that ‘people let off steam at football’ and that ‘it’s only football,’ added Bush. ‘If it was in a tea-room of a country hotel and people behaved like that then the courts would take a different view.’ The FA said last night they would be working on the problem with clubs, leagues and police.