The Context and Development of Regulation

It is almost trite to note that football is subject to a wide range of both legal and extra-legal controls. During the 1980s, this regulation was based primarily upon a desire to control the public order problem of football hooliganism both at home and abroad. The post-Taylor landscape has seen further consolidation, and extension, of controls over fans. At the same time we have also witnessed the creation of a new licensing and safety regime for grounds. Both of these areas show the key focal points for the legislation: public order and safety.

During this period, and especially during the Thatcher administration, the relationship between politics and football was narrow in its focus, concentrating primarily on the problem of hooliganism without concerning itself with the causes, or with the wider issues affecting football. In a sense this was very much a reactive approach, looking to utilise the existing criminal law and providing new measures to address the perceived problems. The legacy of this is a strict regulatory framework that can be used to control spectators. Contemporaneously, as football has developed as an economic entity, we have begun to see the emergence of new threads and angles to regulation, moving away from public order and criminal issues and into the areas of civil law (contract and tort), and wider commercial issues such as broadcasting and merchandising. It is important to bear these other areas of regulation in mind since, while this chapter deals primarily with what might be termed the 'lowest form' of regulation (the regulation of consumption), it does provide a context for the other forms of regulation discussed throughout the book.

Whilst we concentrate on legislative provisions enacted post-1980, it would be a mistake to think that the history of football regulation began on the steps of 10 Downing Street in May 1979. Whilst this chapter deals primarily with football within the era of professionalisation, and indeed within this centres upon activities after 1980, it is important to appreciate that political and legal issues have a long association with 'football'.

The genesis of association football is difficult to document with any accuracy, as the different versions and derivatives of this type of play were manifold and not confined to one country or culture. In the United Kingdom, football became prevalent as part of popular carnivals and festivals around the country, and particularly the games practised on Shrove Tuesday – football has always been a popular sport, both in terms of participation and of consumption. Before a systemised and regulatory internal framework was put in place via the Football Association (FA), the games tended to be largely unstructured, or at least only structured within their localised form, as there were huge variations in tactics, technique and shape from place to place and game to game. In common with other sports during this period, the game of football was heavily regulated by the state. This was primarily because of the potential public-order issues connected with large congregations of (predominantly young) people, but also because of the wider perception of sport. Sport was seen for a long time as being an 'idle pursuit' which detracted from more useful activities, something that might have a negative effect upon industrial efficiency. The state has banned, prohibited or regulated sport on a number of occasions. There are examples of royalty proscribing activities such as football during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and the game, in a wider sense, even faced attacks during activities such as enclosure, when the fields used to play football were lost to the community and the game was effectively prevented from being played (Osborn 2000). Similarly, religious movements, which may also have had a political dimension, acted to curtail football play at certain times, especially in the period before its rehabilitation on the back of the civilising process in the public schools. What the examples above do show is that, whilst we focus on the professional era, and in particular on the post-war period, the regulation of football does have an historical context, and some of the later regulation has to be seen in the light of this.

Whilst this chapter looks primarily at the regulatory framework that governs spectators, wider political issues are never far from these considerations. The reports of Lords Popplewell and Taylor in the 1985-90 period rightly have a high prominence and are credited as being two of the catalysts for football's rejuvenation. However, the government has a long history of commissioning reports to examine various problems within football. Before analysing the legal regulatory framework in the second part of this chapter, it is important to appreciate how the government has responded to disasters and other football issues throughout the twentieth century. Whilst Hillsborough and the Football Task Force have taken centre stage in recent years, government involvement in football is a longstanding one, usually predicated upon a disaster or event that requires intervention. The first section of this chapter presents a chronological analysis of the twentieth-century government reports and inquiries. A trawl of this nature excavates many interesting things, not least the fact that in many cases the same recommendations have been made on many occasions with no or little response forthcoming. However, the second part of this chapter looks in detail at the legal responses to these interventions in the 1980s and beyond.

FOOTBALL'S PROBLEMS

The 1960s represented something of a glorious era for British football in terms of performances on the pitch, notably the World Cup success in 1966 and the European Cup wins of Celtic and Manchester United in 1967 and 1968 respectively. However, it was the latter end of this decade and particularly the 1970s that saw the emergence of some of the problems that were to trouble the game for the next two decades and beyond. On the field there was a high level of success as evidenced by the performance of British clubs in European club competitions. Between 1970 and 1985, after which the ban on European clubs was instituted, English clubs won seven European Cups (out of ten final appearances), four Cup Winners Cups (out of seven final appearances) and seven UEFA Cups (out of nine appearances). This grand total of 18 trophies indicated the strength of British (essentially English) club football. In comparison Italian sides won four trophies, Germany nine, Holland six and Spain one. This dominance in Europe ended in 1985 after the Heysel stadium disaster. The key element that began to dominate the football agenda was the behaviour of supporters: the question of football hooliganism. Whilst hooliganism has usually been the target for government intervention and...