Football banning orders on the rise: Draconian or justified?

There was a fear around the turn of the year that English football was lurching back to its bad old days. A spike in violent disorder made for weeks of ugly headlines and a string of perpetrators soon had their day in the courts.

Like 19-year-old Leicester City supporter Cameron Toner, who ran on to the pitch to assault Nottingham Forest players Brennan Johnson, Keinan Davis and Djed Spence during an FA Cup fourth-round tie at the City Ground in January.

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Toner was given a four-month prison sentence after pleading guilty at Nottingham Magistrates Court. “It is clear from your actions you were determined to mete out violence on opposition players,” Toner was told by the district judge, Leo Pyle. “What you solely created was, quite frankly, an outrage that could easily have caused major disorder.”

Toner had already been handed a lifetime ban by Leicester City but added to that was a 10-year football banning order (FBO), the maximum length permissible, to ensure he will not be permitted to attend live matches until 2032. Breaching his FBO would be a criminal offence, punishable by up to six months in prison.

Toner has not been the only one in receipt of an FBO this season. According to figures given to The Athletic this week, a total of 348 FBOs have been given out to fans already in 2021-22. The annual total, based on data collected between August 1 to July 31, will inevitably grow in the coming weeks and easily eclipse the 360 handed out during the 2019-20 campaign.

“It’s fair to say they’re significantly up and it’s fair to say the number will keep rising,” says the UK’s football policing lead, chief constable Mark Roberts.

About 1,300 fans currently have FBOs imposed and each spans at least three years.

Total banning orders issued annually

Not only do they cover all regulated football matches in the UK, they can limit travel and an individual’s movement on their club’s matchday. Passports also have to be surrendered to police ahead of European games involving the banned fan’s team and major international tournaments.

The purpose they serve is clear; remove known troublemakers and limit the threat of disorder.

FBOs were first introduced 35 years ago to combat hooliganism during Margaret Thatcher’s time as prime minister. Their initial form kept the identified fans away from grounds but have evolved to include further stringent restrictions. Their critics believe those have become draconian.

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The reasons behind an FBO being given out, too, have grown.

A Manchester City fan, Aaron Johnson, will not see live football again for three years after being found guilty of launching a pie at opposing supporters earlier this season. Throwing a smoke bomb ensured one Leeds United fan, Joe Rose, received a three-year FBO of his own in March.

Celebrating on the pitch can also be cause for an FBO, as two Hartlepool United fans, Joe Mcleod and Cullen Coulson, discovered last month.

“It was silly,” said Coulson, pleading guilty to entering a football pitch as Hartlepool came from 2-0 down to beat Harrogate Town 3-2 in October. “It was a momentary lapse where we got a bit excited. I can only apologise.”

Both men asked the judge during a hearing at Teesside Magistrates’ Court not to impose FBOs but were told they could not attend live matches for three years after it was decided their actions could have incited trouble among visiting fans.

The Stop Oil protesters, who interrupted Premier League games in March, can also expect to face an FBO and the restrictions that come with one.

So, has this season seen the threshold change, with a greater push for FBOs in a climate that brought 802 arrests across the top five divisions of English football between July and December?

“You’re going to get examples where people say ‘Is that really necessary (to get an FBO)?’ says Roberts.

“We’re pushing the courts to be more proactive with pitch encroachment. We need to show a very strong message so I welcome positive action from the courts against people coming on the pitch. There is no reason for anyone to do it.

“We don’t want FBOs to be used for trivial matters but you’ve got to look at each case on its merits. I get the point that some supporters’ groups think it’s draconian and why it’s just football.

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“But we get these issues at football and dealing with the people who want to misbehave and keeping the vast majority safe. The broad thrust of an FBO is that it’s a powerful tool to make the game safer. The thresholds are in the right place.”

Not all agree.

“There is a danger in the current climate that football policing operations lose their nerve because of these increases and they will stop doing the things they’ve been doing well,” says Geoff Pearson, a professor of law at the University of Manchester and an expert on football crowds and policing.

“They’ll revert to the more reactionary show-of-force policing that we were used to seeing in the 80s and 90s. There’ll be a rush to secure FBOs for any offence. That’s my real concern.

“I’ve no problem with someone being given a FBO for running on a pitch, but why should they be banned from going to a town centre and all the other restrictions? This isn’t just a moral point, it’s also a legal point. FBOs are skating on thin ice in the Court of Appeal.”

The history of banning orders can be traced back to the troubled mid-1980s. Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government were attempting to confront “the enemy within” during the Miners’ Strike and the Public Order Act 1986 brought legislation to tackle demonstrations and crowd gatherings.

Included was the power to ban football fans from attending games if found guilty of a football-related offence. That came a year after supporters had been banned from drinking in view of a football pitch and represented an uncompromising new stance to remedying football’s ills.

And there, in legislation, the FBO has stayed as what is known as a “civil preventative measure.”

“They were originally designed to prevent the kind of violence we saw involving hooligan firms, hence the conditions preventing you not only from attending matches but also setting an exclusion zone around the stadium and city centres,” explains Pearson.

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“In that sense, they are designed to prevent fighting at football games. Where they have been used against people who have been convicted of crimes around football, I think they’ve been quite successful.

“We don’t actually have any evidence demonstrating whether they’ve been successful but fans and police I speak to say the same. If there was research I would think we’d find them beneficial domestically.”

According to figures published by the Home Office every autumn, the number of banning orders in place was as high as 3,174 in November 2011. Every year since has brought a fall to the 1,359 FBOs in place as of August 1, 2021. Included in the figure were 38 fans under the age of 18.

But this season, as with arrests, is bringing a spike in the number handed out.

Any magistrate giving out an FBO must typically satisfy a two-part test. First comes a conviction for a football-related offence, a lengthy list that runs from throwing missiles to ticket touting, and then a court has to be persuaded that granting an FBO application will prevent future football-related violence and disorder.

That ensures FBOs can be given out to inappropriate chanting or gestures, as well as violent acts such as assault. An Arsenal fan and a Liverpool supporter have both been given three-year FBOs for homophobic slurs at Premier League games this season, with magistrates accepting their actions could bring the threat of disorder. The same will apply to a Newcastle United follower, Shay Asher, who made a Nazi salute towards Tottenham fans inside St James’ Park in October. Northumbria Police plan to apply for an FBO, which the defendant opposes, when back in court in July.

Prosecutors are also able to apply for an FBO on complaint, rather than conviction. They must satisfy a court that the individual has previously caused or contributed to violence or disorder and that imposing an FBO would help limit further problems.

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Then come the raft of stringent restrictions, imposed on a case-by-case basis. The surrender of passports in the weeks involving a major international tournament tends to be a headline-maker, preventing fans from following their country overseas, but there can also be weekly limits for the duration of an FBO.

Take Bradford City fan, Liam Ryan, who was convicted of using threatening/abusive words/behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress and given a three-year FBO last month, as an example.

The conditions imposed said he is not permitted to approach within three miles of the stadium in the period between three hours prior to the kick off and two hours after the end of the game, while he is also not allowed to be at either of Bradford’s main transport hubs on a matchday. Away games also ensure he is not able to be within five miles of where Bradford are playing on that day.

“Sometimes the conditions can be really stringent,” explains Amanda Jacks, case worker at the Football Supporters Association. “If I’ve got an FBO and I’m a West Ham United fan then the conditions would be that I can’t go to any town or city where West Ham are playing.

“I’m not allowed within a certain radius of the stadium or not even allowed on public transport on the day of the match. They’re very draconian.

“If you’re represented then you can have those conditions altered if agreed by the court. I will hear from a lot of fans who will say they were charged with something like section 5 public order (the use threatening words or behaviour) pleaded guilty just to get it over with and then they’ve got an FBO.

“They are not punishments, they’re civil preventative measures. That’s something a lot of people don’t appreciate. When someone gets an FBO it’s presented that they got it as a punishment. They’re not there as a punishment, they’re there to prevent disorder.”

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Police forces deploy specialist football officers and spotters tasked with identifying those with FBOs. Finding anyone in breach of an FBO will bring a criminal charge, a fine and the potential to be imprisoned for up to six months. Levels of compliance are known to be high.

“They’re a really successful tool for us,” says Roberts. “We see very few breaches of banning orders so we do know it has a very positive impact on the fans who might misbehave.”

There are plenty, like Toner, who can have no complaints.

“When it comes to people fighting at football matches, then FBOs play an important role,” accepts Pearson.

“There’s been a creep in terms of what they can be secured for but there’s also been a creep in terms of the conditions that are imposed.

“I’ve seen some very questionable successful banning order applications at a magistrates court in my observations. A lot of fans go to these cases unrepresented. They’re unaware of the extent of the conditions that are likely to be imposed.”

Jacks tells the story of one Liverpool fan who was arrested and charged for throwing a toilet roll onto the pitch for their Premier League game away to Chelsea in January. The threat of an FBO was very real until legal representation resulted in charges being dropped.

“FBOs were not brought in for this,” says Jack. “It’s fairly obvious that nobody sat down and wrote the legislation with the idea of banning orders for people who threw toilet rolls or go on the pitch for 10 seconds in celebrations.”

Cause to give out FBOs is growing and, arguably, away from their original purpose. The government made a commitment after the European Championship that online hate, like that directed at England players Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka, would be added to the list of football-related offences that could result in an FBO.

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Roberts is also campaigning to see the possession of Class A drugs, namely cocaine, to be added after an inquiry into the trouble before the final of the Euros at Wembley.

“One of the things we’re really keen on – and we’re supported by the Premier League, the EFL and FA on this – is including class A drugs in the banning order list.

“We’re seeing more and more the use of cocaine and that it is prevalent. We’re pushing hard for that. That would be a sensible measure. We’re encouraged by the conversations we’ve had with the Home Office.”

Football Banning Orders might be evolving but they are clearly here to stay.

(Top Photo: JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images)

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