Arrests double for racist and indecent chants

Football campaigners tell of concern

ARRESTS FOR racist and indecent chanting at football matches more than doubled last season compared to the campaign before, despite severe restrictions on fan attendance, a Home Office report states.

There were 35 such arrests in 2019- 20 compared to 14 in 201819, even though 546 matches were either cancelled or played behind closed doors last season due to the coronavirus pandemic.

For the first time, the 201920 report also logged every hate crime incident – whether online or in person – which had been reported to the UK Football Policing Unit by anti- discrimination body Kick It Out or the Football Association.

It found there were hate crime incidents related to 287 matches, a figure which the UK’s football policing lead described as “incredibly concerning”.

The report said 75 per cent of the incidents related to race,

though many incidents included various types of discrimination.

In addition to the 214 where race featured, 78 referenced sexual identity, 23 mentioned religion, three related to disability and one to gender identity.

The match figures cannot be compared to previous seasons, the report said, because in the past these incidents have only been recorded at the discretion of the police force receiving the report.

But the data showed that the number of arrests for racist or indecent chanting more than doubled from 2018- 19 to 2019- 20 – from 14 to 35 – even though 319 matches were cancelled due to the pandemic and a further 227 were played behind closed doors.

Kick It Out chair Sanjay Bhandari said: “Kick It Out will play its part with campaigning, education and talent programmes that diversify the face of football. But this is everyone’s responsibility. We all need to do more and we all need to take a stand against discrimination.”

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “The increase shown in these statistics is partly down to better recording and awareness, but we have no complacency in stamping out this evil from the game.” Leeds United was the club with the highest number of arrests ( 52), followed by Birmingham City ( 49) and Bolton Wanderers ( 45).