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Manchester United have been ranked as the English club which had most of its fans handed banning orders last season.
The Sun have published a “league of shame” rankings that reveal clubs in England with the worst-behaved fans.
The statistics pointed out a dramatic surge in the number of supporters either arrested or banned last term.
As pointed out by the newspaper, the number of football hooliganism cases has spiked significantly since the Covid lockdown period when fans were not allowed in the stadiums to watch games.
For United, it seems that the problem has spilt over into the ongoing campaign. Indeed, there have been incidents in which fans have been arrested for committing offences.
Earlier this month, it was confirmed that an arrest was made by Greater Manchester Police following cases of “tragedy chanting” during United’s FA Cup quarter-final clash against Liverpool.
A few weeks before that, GMP issued a statement relaying that they arrested up to 15 people during the Manchester derby for a variety of crimes including hurling projectiles onto the pitch and assault.
According to The Sun, “Some 682 bans were issued last season – the most for more than 12 years after possession of Class A drugs like cocaine was added to the list of offences.”
“Football banning orders are issued by courts lasting five years for offences including violence, pitch invasions, and booze-related behaviour.”
“Manchester United fans had the most football banning orders, with 69.”
Second on the list after United were Millwall, Leicester City, Birmingham City and West Ham United rounded off the top five respectively.
The Hammers were ranked as the English outfit with the highest number of arrests last term with 89. 69% of these arrests occurred at the London Stadium.
In this category, United came in second place with 83 arrests. 49% of these happened at Old Trafford.
Leeds United and Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal were in third, fourth, fifth and sixth place respectively.
The publication notes that the highest number of arrests at a domestic competition was the FA Cup with 6.4 arrests per 100,000.
The Premier League had one of the lower arrest rates out of domestic tournaments with 4.3 arrests per 100,000 people.
This is definitely an issue United chiefs will be keen to address and eventually solve.
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