A Lancashire Police Dedicated Football Officer has expressed concern over this winter’s plans to have the Championship, League One and League Two carry on whilst the FIFA World Cup is being played in Qatar.
Although the Premier League will take a sabbatical following the weekend of 12 November until Boxing Day, the Championship will only be on-pause during the ‘group stage’ period of the tournament whilst Leagues One and Two will continue to be played right through football’s showpiece event.
On the topic of the World Cup, Dedicated Football Officer (DFO) Daniel Fish said: “[It’s] why I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better because you’ll have that.”
“We’ve never had a World Cup in the middle of a football season.”
“I think when you’ve seen England being successful – that’s where we’ve started to see that levels are creeping up again. Everybody saw the kind of behaviour we had [at the Euro final] eight months ago.”
“Could you imagine having something like a Preston/Blackpool match on the Saturday [afternoon] and then England playing in the evening? That’s unthinkable.”
In January, the UK Football Policing Unit told the BBC that since the start of this season (2021/22) there have been 759 reported incidents of fan disorder – an increase of 36% since the 2019/20 season – the last in which fans were allowed into stadiums. Figures also state that football-related arrests have increased by 48% – to 802 – in the same timeframe.
Figures also stated that football-related arrests are up 48% – to 802 – in the same timeframe.
Since, there has been a general consensus in the media that the ‘culture’ may be returning to that of the ‘bad old days’ of the 1970s and 80s.
On this consensus, DFO Fish said: “I would say that Lancashire is very much part of the national trend. Arrests, violence and disorder, anti-social behaviour and racism – [those] four things are all up massively. We’re looking at going back to the 80s kind of disorder.”
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