Event Security

All systems go for the new season

Peter Houghton, director of operations at the Football Safety Officers Association (FSOA) sets out some of the risks that could be experienced during the new football season and what can and is being done about them.

As the players are returning for their pre-season training, our safety officers are returning from holiday to see what challenges 2024-2025 will present.

With the Euros over, the EFL is already underway and the Premier League is not far behind.

Pitch Incursions

During the Euros, we saw an above average number of “lone wolf” pitch incursions with individuals trying to get a “selfie” with certain footballers, but apart from that, the German local authorities and police appear to have carried out an excellent operation and delivered an excellent competition.

Pitch incursions and invasions are never far from the headlines and our safety officers, the Premier League and EFL have collaborated extensively designing methods of trying to avoid them. “Lone wolf” incursions are always difficult to predict and the point where the perimeter barrier is breached can never be anticipated. Invasions are easier to predict, but no matter how many stewards a club can parade around the pitch perimeter, they are always outnumbered by the people jumping the fence, meaning that we have to have an equal concern for steward safety. I do like the perimeter wall patrol system they use at Rangers Ibrox Stadium which appears to be quite effective.

An individual running on to the field presents us with additional dangers as we don’t know their intentions, and it could have terrorist overtones.

Safety officers are aware of this and have written their risk assessments and their mitigation strategies.

Martyn's Law

Martyn’s Law was shelved at the end of the last government, but it was included in the King’s Speech and new prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer has committed to making this law by the end of 2024. Clubs have concerns about their stadia and what has come to be known as “Zone-Ex” – the spaces immediately outside a stadium and on its approaches which inadvertently becomes a “crowded place” on the way to the match.

Grounds that access directly on to busy roads have to implement traffic management programmes which involve road closures and in view of vehicles-borne attacks have taken the decision to acquire additional portable structures to help with the closures and help prevent an attack of this nature. Even a stadium that enjoys an island site may have to put in road closures as part of its egress safety policy.

Our Association has teamed up with key provider, Crowdguard whose kit is visible pretty much all over the country, not only around sports stadia, but also where local authorities have open-access events, an example being the Durham Miners “Big Day” which is attended by close on 30000 people and involves a march through the streets of Durham to the parade grounds.

Counter-terrorism remains a massive focus in terms of risk to creating safe spaces for our supporters to watch and enjoy sporting and other events, especially as clubs seek to grow the size of their stadium to accommodate more spectators and in the case of one club, having a brand new 23,000 capacity arena constructed on one of its car parks and therefore affecting the crowd movement around the stadium itself.

Our clubs will be carrying out their risk assessments in respect of this and seeking the advice and help they need to keep their supporters safe. Our Association has a special incentive available to help them with these threat, vulnerability & risk assessments through its sponsorship arrangement with Crowdguard. Needless to say, the demand for this will increase rapidly now clubs are aware that the time for the implementation of the legislation is now closer than the horizon. Searching All venues, be they sports stadia, arenas or theatres are seeking to reduce the amount of things people take with them to events.

Gone are the days when you can turn up with a rucksack full of food and beverage hoping to avoid the prices being charged at the venue. Attendees should only take with them what they need – a small bag containing bank cards, cash, match ticket, car keys and mobile phone. This is primarily to ensure that the access control timeline is as short as possible.

Stewards have to ensure that flow rates are maintained in order to get everyone in on time and the more “stuff” a spectator has to be checked, the longer it takes and as the vast majority of people attending arrive in the last half hour, it creates log jams at the point of entry. So, the message is… don’t take too much with you. The need to search will not go away, so it important that spectators adhere to the policy in order to get people to their seats as quickly as possible.

What supporters don’t often realise is that the same strategy applies to stewards themselves and catering and hospitality staff. Often a stadium doesn’t have a spare room for match day workers belongings, so it is important that they, too, don’t bring in anything they don’t need to complete their work shift.

Stewarding

Stewarding itself still remains a challenge. The industry has just about recovered numbers-wise after Covid. Clubs have to meet minimum requirements as stated in the Green Guide, their own dot maps and Local Authority requirements.

Clubs feel it is preferable to have their own stewards, but, especially in the Premier League, this is rarely possible, so there is a dependency on supply security companies to provide for the clubs. Many have companies they have used for a while, but with the onset of additional responsibilities, need more and more and it is interesting to see that one of our own major sponsors, IPM Group UK Ltd, is being asked by an increasing number of clubs if they can help. This demand has seen them grow their portfolio to around 15 clubs now at all levels of the football spectrum.

Our other security partners are also receiving similar demands and thankfully our clubs can safely ensure their fixtures are fulfilled by parading sufficient safety and security staff. The industry is in the process of “smartening-up” stewarding with a view to creating a career pathway.

Additional education and knowledge standards are being created as well as a registration and CPD process with the ultimate view of increasing their pay to better reflect the responsibilities they now have, especially following the Manchester Arena atrocity. This is great news for the stewards, who week after week ensure that the full programmes of sports fixtures can go ahead and are responsible for keeping hundreds of thousands of people safe every week.

Sports grounds have certain positions that can be fulfilled by “safety stewards” and others that need to be fulfilled by “security stewards” and it is a case of “never the twain shall meet” and each steward type requires a different skill set. This can be overcome by training stewards in both sets of skills and this is something the industry is looking at, although the costs involve are quite prohibitive when you take into account the churn of people working in this area.

Drugs and pyrotechnics

In the post-Covid era the use of cocaine has become an increasing problem around our stadia and in other sorts, notably horse racing and F1 – big full-day outdoor events, where detection is more difficult. Working in days where the relative cost of this particular drug is manageable, we can see some evidence of its use where we didn’t previously.

In “normal” society, “snorting a line” is no longer the domain of hidden away areas. Individuals can be see doing this in plain sight across our city centres and indeed in sports grounds. It is difficult to manage as most stewards are not trained in this area as they are only trained to deal with the consequences.

Pyrotechnic devices, especially smoke canisters and flares continue also to be of concern as excessive smoke can often obliterate the view temporarily from the event control room and can provide cover for other misdemeanours.

Clearly in the cases of both drugs and pyros, the preventative measures begin at the entry point to the stadium, often the turnstile queue. A spectator wouldn’t know whether a detection dog was looking for drugs, pyros or other explosive devices. Generally, around these areas there are likely to be amnesty bins which could collect both drugs or pyros.

The person trying to smuggle them in knows the outcome which is likely to be a football banning order, so, a pyro-carrying spectator might put his pyros in the bin thinking it is a pyro dog and a drug-carrying spectator likewise thinking it is a drug detection dog.

In the event detection dog world, there simply aren’t enough dogs to go round. As Martyn’s Law approaches, there will be an increased demand for dogs, not only in a sports grounds context, but in more or less every walk of life. Handling companies are working flat out to train as many as possible, but increased demand from, for example, the Border Force, is taking a lot of dogs out of the sporting arena and into the more public service domain.

So, pre-season is just as busy as in-season…and the pre-season friendlies have already started.