ACPO Lead: 'We Are Winning Football Battle'

Thu, 02 September 2010 Courtesy of: Cliff Caswell PoliceOracle.com

The police and the criminal justice system are winning the battle to both prevent and deal with international football-related trouble, according to the ACPO lead on the subject.

Reflecting on the summer’s World Cup in South Africa, ACC Andy Holt said that the combination of measures such as Football Banning Orders (FBOs) and effective liaison with police forces in other countries had helped block the troublemakers before they were able to arrive in the country.

The senior officer, who is serving with South Yorkshire Police, said that the football festival had largely passed without incident and that crowds had enjoyed the occasion despite England’s early exit at the hands of Germany.

ACC Holt added: “Without wishing to sound too confident, one of the key lessons of the World Cup for me was that the model of football policing that we have is good and works. It enables us to manage out disruption.

“But I think one of the problems that we continue to have is that it is very difficult to shed a reputation once you give a dog a bad name – the reputation of England fans is still poor but we have changed the way they behave.

“Compared to what has gone before, there has been a sea change, and that has been brought about with the Football Policing Unit and some good legislation.”

ACC Holt deployed as the leader of a 13-strong team of officers, largely made up from the unit, shortly before the start of the World Cup and was based in the capital Pretoria at the International Police Co-ordination Centre.

Mixing with officers from every other competing nation apart from North Korea, their job was to advise the South African Force on policing the competition as well as assisting the British High Commission in ensuring supporters stayed safe.

“It was interesting with us to work with the South Africans, not least because we were deploying as an unarmed contingent into a country where the numbers of officers killed every year is more than the British troop deaths in Afghanistan – working in that environment is not straightforward.

“Their police service is run as a national body and is very much a paramilitary organisation – the officers are permanently armed, they use equipment including armoured vehicles and have a military rank structure. But we had a good relationship with the General at the head of the service.”

However, ACC Holt admitted that there had been early misunderstanding with the South Africans, who were convinced that serious disorder would break out with England’s arrival, and promptly began demonstrating their dispersal methods.

“We spent a lot of time convincing them that this was not going to happen, and there was not going to be organised disorder,” he said. “But it took a look of persuading and time spent building up the trust between us.”

ACC Holt pointed out that the conditions of FBOs – which included making offenders report to police and the confiscation of passports during England matches – meant that known troublemakers were prevented from travelling.

“The introduction of the FBO has changed the nature of the international game – for domestic matches it is easier for people to move, but is now very difficult for known offenders to travel abroad and this helped us with our task,” he added.

“With the logistics of getting to South Africa, we always knew it was going to be a very different tournament from the one in Germany four years ago – unlike Europe, you cannot just decide to get in a car and go there.”

ACC Holt said that the South African authorities’ commitment to rapid justice for any suspected offenders had also helped. With special courts for football-related matters set up in areas where matches were held, cases were disposed of swiftly and penalties for those caught quickly imposed.

“The approach as a whole meant that there was no real disorder for us,” he added. “We had arrests for one road traffic incident, one for harbouring an offender and one incident of trespass, which was the man who wandered into the England dressing room – there was no real hooliganism.

“For me personally, however, it was great to help deliver policing at such an amazing sporting event – even though I am more of a rugby than football fan,” ACC Holt concluded. “I also enjoyed working with such a capable team, with officers from around the world, and seeing a place that is truly remarkable.”