Police incidents were reported at 1,644 football matches in England and Wales during 2025-26, a four percent increase, while arrests or other actions fell to 1,695, according to the Guardian's account of annual Home Office data whose direct tables were not recovered, leaving a secondary account rather than direct-table verification. [1]

The need to preserve categories follows the paper's separation of club bans, suspensions, investigations and convictions, because a national incident report likewise cannot make every report, arrest, interview, banning order and outcome mean the same thing.

New reporting categories for sexism, misogyny and violence against women, together with a new unauthorized-entry offense, changed the series, and the Home Office reportedly said those additions drove much of the increase, making a simple record-disorder comparison incompatible across years rather than evidence that the underlying conduct suddenly changed. [1]

Police also estimated that taxpayers carry GBP70 million each season for work outside stadiums, while the Premier League described its own security spending, but neither attributed figure settles the cost method, clubs' legal responsibility, the location of each incident or whether added funding would reduce harm and distribute costs fairly.

The timed-out X search provides no supporter, police or taxpayer consensus and cannot become platform silence, leaving both record disorder and reassuring arrest decline too neat until direct definitions, attendance denominators, comparable categories, locations, charges, outcomes and compatible funding accounts are available over time.

-- ANNA WEBER, Berlin