Recently, the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) reported an 11% reduction in stadium-related incidents compared to the 2022/23 season. This news drew applause from sports experts, but is it really a success? Stadium safety solutions should only be considered successful when the number of incidents is zero.
League executives emphasize stadium safety solutions as a priority, but actions fall short
There are three key reasons why football game incidents gain attention.
1. Club fines
As all people from the football world know, clubs are held accountable for fan behavior inside stadiums, including field invasions, throwing objects, or lighting fireworks. These actions result in fines that eat matchday earnings. For instance, Dutch Eredivisie clubs paid €920K in fines during the 2022/23 season, while Belgian Pro League clubs paid €910K.
2. Politics
Governments often pressure leagues to prioritize stadium safety solutions due to the bad publicity these incidents create. While executives make statements to calm critics and show their determination to solve the issue, these are often mostly to get positive PR.
3. Decreasing attendance growth with new generations
Football has long been a family tradition, with parents introducing their children to the sport at a young age. However, rising safety concerns and a societal shift toward prioritizing safety have made parents more hesitant to bring their children to games.
Lorin Parys sums it up well.
There is a hard core of 2 to 3 percent of the spectators – I don’t want to call them fans – who are holding our football hostage today. We want that 2 to 3 percent out of our stadiums, because then we will grow 10 to 15 percent in spectator numbers. These are families with children who are staying away today. We want to make stadiums safe again.
This mindset should guide every football executive. It’s encouraging to see Marianne van Leeuwen of KNVB share a similar perspective:
Incidents get all the attention, understandably because every incident is one too many.
They’re preparing a joint roadmap with 50 measures focused on prevention, detection, punishment, and promoting positive behavior.
Current stadium safety solutions are not effective
We see this as a global issue, and football clubs together with leagues are no exception. They often focus on addressing the consequences of problems rather than tackling their root causes of the issue. What do we mean by that?
Clubs invest lots of money in advanced camera systems in stadiums to identify individuals involved in specific incidents. These systems can capture clear images of culprits and match them to people already on a blocklist. They pass the information to the police, who either act immediately after the game or later by visiting the person’s home based on previously collected fan data. Clubs collect this data, such as names and birth dates, when fans agree to the terms and conditions of ticket purchase. This allows clubs to issue official stadium bans.
If you look at the numbers published by KNVB for the 2022/23 season, the clubs were fairly successful and issued 1.086 bans. Yet, the number of incidents only dropped from 169 to 150, showing very little effect.
This means, there was an incident in every 5 games across the season.
In other words, every other match week, there’s trouble.
So why does issuing stadium bans not help?
1. Fan data collected during ticket purchase is made up
There is no system in place to ensure clubs collect verified data. In reality, as a fan, you could pretend to be anyone and still get a ticket. Just have a look at the picture below.
2. Banned people can still get into stadiums
Why make so much fuss about the success of imposing stadium bans when they don’t actually work?
Lorin Parys mentions that, together with the Association, they have imposed a total of 308 years of stadium bans in just over one season.
Even if clubs could guarantee that the fan data is accurate and crosscheck names and birthdates against a blocklist to prevent banned individuals from purchasing tickets, they still can’t stop friends or relatives from buying tickets on their behalf. Then, these banned individuals simply walk through the turnstiles and cause trouble again. The process of identifying culprits starts all over, accompanied by more PR about how they were identified once again.
This creates a vicious cycle with no end. Or is there a way out?
Link entrance tickets to fan identity
The real solution that eliminates the root issue is linking each ticket to a fan’s identity, for example, using face recognition. Face offers the best balance of safety and convenience because many people already use their face to unlock their smartphones.
The approach is straightforward. In the ticket purchase process, instead of fans typing personal data, the system would extract it directly from their identity document. Hundred per cent accurate, hundred per cent valid.
If a red light turned on in your head with concern about what the club will do with an image of the fan’s identity document, you can be calm because no images are stored. Most importantly, this approach allows clubs to effectively block banned individuals from purchasing tickets.
In the next step, fans take a selfie, which is converted into a string of random characters that represent the face. This string can’t be reversed back to the original image. The unique face string is then linked to the ticket.
When fans try to enter the stadium, they only need to smile to enter. The crucial aspect of this solution is that banned individuals cannot be given a ticket because they can’t borrow a face from someone else.
The crucial aspect of this solution is that banned individuals cannot be given a ticket because they can’t borrow a face from someone else.
No matter what, they can’t get in.
If clubs implement these stadium safety solutions, their post-incident identification process within the stands and issuing of bans will start to make sense. In a short period of time, they will be able to reduce incidents to zero, the only acceptable number.
Ferencvárosi TC has a fantastic success with these stadium safety solutions
Ferencvárosi TC implemented a new ticketing and fan card system, requiring all fans to register biometrically. This allowed the club to identify who was entering the stadium and flag problematic individuals.
The club was able to bring many more families to the stands, feeling secure enough to bring their kids. This is a crucial long-term strategy for every club, as 61% of fandom forms by the age of 14. Securing a large fanbase from the new generation ensures the club’s sustainability and growth.
They also managed to increase matchday revenue by 48%. The club was able to attract people from all over the country with a boost of spontaneous visits. Football is now an alternative weekend activity for anyone, not just for the loyal thousands who attend every game. This allows the club to sell more merchandise and monetize families, who are significant spenders.
So simply said, biometrics is mainly for safety, but safety is not just PR. It’s a way to increase stadium attendance and fan spending.
