The Home Office announced on Thursday that incidents were reported at 1,644 matches in England and Wales during the 2025-26 season – the highest figure since the UK Football Policing Unit (UKFPU) started collecting the data in 2017-18. According to an annual report by the Home Office, released on Thursday, there was a 4% increase in the number of matches with reports of “football-related anti-social behaviour, violence and disorder” during the 2025-26 season. Reports were made at 1,644 games, up from 1,580 the previous campaign.
The total number of arrests last season stood at 1,695, down from 1,744 in 2024-25 and a peak of 2,198 during the pandemic-affected campaign of 2021-22. There were 45 arrests made under the new law in 2025-26, meaning total arrests and actions would otherwise have declined by 4%.
Of the incidents reported, the most common type was “hate crime”, which was reported at 491 matches. The second most common was reports of missiles being thrown (359 games) and then the use of pyrotechnics (316 matches). There was also a 73 per cent rise in the number of online hate and abuse incidents in 2025-26 compared to the prior season – 405, up from 234.
Chief constable Mark Roberts, the lead for football policing in England and Wales, said the latest Home Office report showed the need to revisit the funding of football policing, with 46% of arrests and actions taking place outside of stadiums. “Football-related crime doesn’t simply stop when fans exit the stadium, but under the current system multibillion-pound football clubs do not have to pay a penny towards the policing outside their grounds,” Roberts said. “This means that taxpayers are left footing the £70m bill each season, which simply cannot continue.”
For the 2023-24 season, football clubs covered £14.87m of the total policing cost, with taxpayers picking up the £56.82m remainder, according to UKFPU figures. A Premier League spokesperson said: “The Premier League and its clubs work closely with police forces at a national and local level to ensure safe and welcoming environments for all fans. We are investing more than £90m a season in stewarding, security, crime prevention in communities and a series of technology-led pilots in partnership with a number of police forces and the UKFPU (United Kingdom Football Policing Unit). “This partnership approach will help the police to safely reduce the demand for policing around football matches, as the number of arrests continue to fall significantly over the last decade.”