Live Football Matches-Safety

Is watching football in stadiums in the UK and Europe Safe?

If you were watching the European Championships this summer, you may have noticed some angry Croatian fans throwing flames onto the pitch during a group match against the Czech Republic.  This is not the first time it's happened in a European game, there have been several incidents where we have witnessed these attacks in Europe, especially in places like Spain, Italy and Russia. What would be interesting to know is where do fans get these flames from and shouldn't it be illegal to take things other than food, drink and match day programs into the stadium? All we want to see is fans going into the stadium watch the match and enjoy themselves. If you had watch the game or even read about it, you may have noticed that there were some angry Chelsea fans fighting with West Ham fans.

The point I want to make is, should there be more stewards in stadiums during live football matches?  We just want to see a good game of football don't we?  Most stadiums around Europe have netting to protect the players from the fans, however in the UK, this is not the case. This raises the issue for the health and safety welfare of football players and fans who come two watch their teams play. This is where the FA and owners of each club need to think about a solution against this issue. The good thing is that nowadays each club has their own security, but I don't think it’s enough to handle crowds that have more than 30,000 people. Stadium expert Paul Fletcher says that if security problems continue to occur at the London Stadium, then it should be knocked down. This would be a disaster for the city as well as West Ham Football Club as it took 3 years to build and the fans had to be patient for the stadium to be ready so that they could go see their team play their home matches at this wonderful iconic stadium. I would say that most grounds in the UK are fairly safe in terms of security, but the quality of the stadium should be just on its facilities and how it manages the fans as well as the security of the players, manager, and staff. Grounds such as Wembley have a team of more than 100 crowd security members. This may be enough to handle a crowd of 90,000 people, but it’s about how the crowed react in the sense that if you had more than 50% of angry fans, it is more difficult to control them simply because there’s one of you and a lot of them, which is why you need to seek help from other people in order for y0u to manage the crowed appropriately but more importantly safely.

Coming back to the main point, what are your views on this story?

Do you think that watching live football matches in the UK are safe?

What is your opinion of crowd security in stadiums?

Do we need more or less security staff?

Give us your views!