Prime Minister
I really wanted to have a meeting with you before the season starts, to report how far we have got; to reaffirm our determination to do everything possible to eradicate hooliganism. I say “everything possible” because I do not think we should assume that we will be immediately successful. You know the kind of people that we are dealing with. But everything possible, and to report to you after the meeting we had with Mr. Millichip and Jack DunnettMr. Dunnett and the Football Trust and Football Association yesterday, because I think, together, we have got quite a long way, but the most difficult problem which remains is that of club membership cards.
Can I just recap on what we have done. I think you probably know it fairly well. I will just go through it.
Legislation banning alcohol will be enforced at the beginning of the new season.
Mr. Justice Popplewell has reported on the Bradford and Birmingham tragedies—a very vivid report. Some of you may have been at the Birmingham one. For those of us who were not, it really did make very horrendous reading; and he has made his recommendations on crowd control and anti-hooliganism. [end p1]
The Home Secretary has designated all grounds in Divisions III and IV of the Football Leage from August 9th. Then, clubs will be required to apply for safety certificates.
We have also taken many steps to increase the effectiveness of the police in dealing with the problem.
There are now Home Office photographic vehicles. They are called many many things. I call them television vans … . video vans.
Home Secretary [Leon Brittan]
They have been known as “Hoolivans” . I do not like that.
Prime Minister
I think that is quite wrong.
Home Secretary
I agree with that.
Prime Minister
That is just exactly why I am trying to get something better; either television vans or video vans … mobile television vans might make more people pay their television licences if they think those are in the area!
Leon BrittanThe Home Secretary has also drawn the attention of magistrates to the Court of Appeal's Guidelines on Sentencing Violent Offenders. I seem to remember Mr. Justice Popplewell also put those in his Report as well.
Neil MacFarlane has played a leading part in securing [end p2] a convention on spectator violence in the Council of Europe and we are now asking UEFA to bring in binding measures in line with this convention for matches held under their auspices.
I have had some representations from some of you about the games in Mexico. At one stage, I thought that they would all have to get visas to go to Mexico and then we understood that that was not the case, so now the Foreign Office is having discussions with the Mexican Government on what steps can be taken to control travel to the World Cup Finals next year.
As you know, we also plan to introduce public order legislation next session and as you know from the statements that have been made, that will strengthen the hand of the police over what should happen inside the ground; they can say how many people should be let in, whether it should be an all-ticket match, where they should sit and so on. That will be introduced, I hope, fairly soon at the beginning of the session and obviously we will get it through as soon as possible; but until it is through, they will not have those powers.
That is what we have done so far and also, I think there are about 20 grounds now—20, Neil, that have closed-circuit televisions?
Mr. Macfarlane
Yes, and we would hope that …
Prime Minister
I had hoped that we would get up to 35 by the beginning of the season and we are trying to speed things up. I gather [end p3] that the controlling factor at the moment is the number of appropriate cameras that we can get. It is quality of them. They have got to be not merely crowd control cameras; they have got to be those which are sufficient to give evidence of hooliganism and therefore to be able to identify people in the crowd. You have seen some of the videos that the police have taken already. But they are not only crowd control cameras; you have got to be able to identify from them people in the crowd, so you have got to have the right cameras.
I met the Football Association—we all did—just the other day, and we got, I thought, quite far with membership cards, because we are all very anxious to be able to identify the hooligans and to keep them from going into grounds and Leon Brittanthe Home Secretary made it quite clear that he was prepared to bring before Parliament a measure which would enable the courts to make an exclusion order against people who have been convicted of hooliganism. Now, if you are going to do that, you have got to have a way of identifying them very quickly at the gates, and you cannot do that without the kind of membership card which will identify the person concerned. That is extremely important.
No-one, I think, at this stage, is asking for a universal membership identify card. What we are trying to do is to get those membership identify cards at the most urgent grounds and clubs, and it obviously makes sense to have a similar system in those clubs, so that gradually it can be built up.
When Mr. Millichip and Mr. Dunnitt left us, they were really going ahead with the scheme for membership cards and Mr. Millichip said that he was prepared to make it a condition of [end p4] that section in the rules which says that if there is trouble the clubs must have taken all reasonable precautions—rule 24—and he was prepared to say that if they did not have membership cards on certain grounds, that he would not have regarded them as having taken all reasonable precautions. That seems to me a very great step forward and it was all in conjunction with the Home Secretary saying that he was prepared to bring before the House an Exclusion Order for those who had been convicted of hooliganism.
Money. First, we are not short of money so far for television cameras. It is not big money, as you know, and really, if £500,000 will not go round and they need some more, I do not think they will have difficulty in getting people to sponsor that particular activity. It would be very very good publicity, and, of course, when I do look at some of the vast sums that are being paid for transfer fees and managers and so on, I do not think that they should have any difficulty in finding the small amount for closed-circuit television cameras.
Two other things. Walton (phon.) has received surveyors' reports and sent them forward to the grounds. The Fire Officers' Reports have been received and they have been forward to the ground.
I made quite clear to the Football Association at the outset because we have to get where the responsibilities lie, we set the rules, but the club on which the match is held is responsible for the safety of the people at that match and there is no way in which they can be absolved from that responsibility; there is no way in which it can be removed from them. We set the rules and the local authorities set the rules under the Green Code, and as you know, we have made some legislation to change the law. But [end p5] the responsibility for ensuring the safety of that ground is theirs and therefore it is they who have to take the action before they invite people to come in and watch the matches.
As you know Mr. Justice Popplewell suggested that for a period, on certain grounds there should be no away supporters, and we drew that to their attention. I know that some of you will say that that will stop the casual supporters and you will be aware that Mr. Justice Popplewell in his Report said: “Look, what we have got to do is to clean up football to make it safe for families to go again” and in fact, if you stop casual people, you may well get more people applying for membership tickets because they in fact feel that the grounds are safe to go to.
I think that takes us just about as far as we have got. Would you like to add anything, Home Secretary, before we open up for questions?
Home Secretary
Only just to say that on this question of the courts having the power to issue orders prohibiting people convicted of offences from going to matches, that really only makes sense in the context of a membership card scheme of some kind, because the law would only be in disrepute if the court made an order and there was absolutely no way of telling when somebody turned up at the ground, whether or not an order had been made against them; and the two therefore do go hand in hand, and that is why I think the Football Authorities saw that this Exclusion Order, which has been suggested in the past, really was the mechanism which could buttress the membership card but equally, that there was no point in having the order without something like membership [end p6] cards, so the two very much go hand in hand.
Prime Minister
I think we have all got the same objective. We really want to restore football to its former place in our national life; to make it safer for people and families to go to and really, to increase the number of spectators that can go there safely and we are going to have to go through a difficult period in order to do that, but I think we must really be very firm on what we expect to be done and what we are prepared to do.
Now, questions, comments, discussion? [end p7]
Brian Scovell ( “Daily Mail” )
Can I ask you what the Government's objection is to a national identity card which is used by a lot of other countries in the world?
Prime Minister
It is not an objection to a national identity card. It is that we really have got to work I think rather faster than that. The Football League are a little bit worried about the complex turnstiles plugged into a computer system. You can maybe have an arrangement for a local club. It would be a much more complex arrangement to get set up for a national identity card because the identity card has got to be one that cannot be forged; which you put into the turnstiles, which flashes immediately into a computer and which will identify, and the person then on the turnstile can see whether the person who is coming in is like the photograph. They say that that is going to be very complicated. We say: “We will not wait for the whole thing. Let us start with the difficult clubs, but it does make sense for the difficult clubs to have the same system so that you can in fact plug into a national system should that prove necessary!”
You have got your study on this?
Mr. Macfarlane
Yes, we have Prime Minister.
Prime Minister
We do not want to mention any names because we shall be [end p8] accused of advertising, but certain companies seem quite confident that they can do the system.
It is not an objection. We would like it, but we do have to recognise their practical objections and therefore we think we have got to start with the most difficult grounds and of course they are already starting to identify what are the potentially difficult matches.
Brian Scovell
I did not mean within football. I meant generally.
Prime Minister
Oh I see! I personally would have no objection at all, but some people would. The whole civil rights lobby would say this is not a free society etc.
Ken Montgomery ( “Sunday Mirror” )
Can you tell us which clubs you consider to be priority clubs or who would decide which are priority clubs?
Prime Minister
Well now you are discussing that. We had better not blazen them abroad, but you are discussing that with the Football League and I think you know who they are and I know who they are. I shall get terrible stick from some of the people in the cities if I say exactly which are. You know who they are and we know who they are. [end p9]
Mr. Macfarlane
We have asked the governing body to identify the difficult matches on a month-by-month basis, so that in the early days of the season we know exactly where that closed-circuit television equipment can be deployed quickly. So we believe the governing body, based upon their knowledge, where they held commissions in past years, they should know where those clubs are and I think most of us, if we all sat down in a separate room with a bit of paper each would know exactly which ones we are talking about.
Prime Minister
You have got closed-circuit at 20?
Mr. Macfarlane
We should have 20, Prime Minister, within a month or so.
Prime Minister
Twenty within a month. You are at 12 at the moment? Eight are being done.
Mr. Macfarlane
And I would hope within two months about 30 odd.
Prime Minister
And applications have been made for some more. [end p10]
Mr. Macfarlane
But we are looking to the Football Authorities to see whether they can come up with some resources to add to the pool of closed-circuit television. We have made that request to them because we believe that for the expenditure of some £20–25,000 it probably represents a better investment than some players.
Prime Minister
You have the amount of money that will be required for terminals?
Mr. Macfarlane
£25,000 each club and of course, Mr. Justice Popplewell talks very graphically about the need to do something about turnstiles in any case, so that therefore it would have to be linked into the appraisal which we are conducting through the Government Computer Agency together with the Sports Council, the Football Trust and the Football League, and we should have that, I hope, by very early September.
Prime Minister
This has been the most difficult thing to persuade both the Football League and the Football Association, but Mr. Millichip was extremely cooperative, particularly when he indicated how he would interpret that particular rule about all reasonable precautions. [end p11]
Mr. Macfarlane
There is nothing to stop a club actually going ahead with their own membership card scheme right away and some are. The Brentford one is very interesting and others, I hope, will come on stream.
Prime Minister
But it does make sense for them to have guidance. You do have a Football Association. It does make sense for them to have guidance. I really would not like to think of the idea of everyone going in for their different scheme and then they go to a different club and there are different turnstiles, their different checking. It does seem to me to make sense to give a clear lead on this.
John Motson (BBC)
On this business of the ID card scheme, I think we are all agreed, as you say, that the identification of the trouble-makers is the thing we are trying to achieve. It does seem terribly simple, however, if everybody had, in an ideal world, an ID card, and if they misbehaved it was confiscated they could not go any more and that would be the problem partially solved. Do you think that the clubs—and I am thinking of the League clubs rather than the Football Association have perhaps dragged their feet a little bit by using this problem of the turnstile operator? It is something of a red herring, because although I take your point that in an ideal world you would need a computerized push-in to make sure the person whose photograph was on the card was that person, in [end p12] the short term, do you think that the turnstile operator … because Mr. Dunnitt keeps saying that if 700 people are queuing up he is under too much pressure to check every photograph … do you think in the short term the turnstile operator necessarily has to sort of identify every single person by their photograph? If the card is obviously an ID card, then surely he can let the person in? The only way that person is trying to defraud the system is if he is using somebody else's card. Now surely, if he then causes trouble in the ground he would be arrested anyway, the card would be seen to be not his and in a funny way you have eliminated both a trouble-maker and someone else who has allowed his card to be misused.
Mr. Macfarlane
Well Popplewell, of course, touches on this particular thing: the role of the steward and the turnstile operator and the importance of training and having better briefed and better trained stewards at the turnstile, and I think that that must be absolutely right.
Prime Minister
What they said is they really must have enough turnstiles. What we said is: “Look! For most things you attend you have to have a ticket anyway, so you have got to get through turnstiles with a ticket!” I think it would be a lot better and easier if the kind of membership identity card they have is a kind that cannot be forged and the kind which has a holographic photograph on which you cannot forge. They are not overexpensive. We have [end p13] various assessments, I think from about 50 pence up to £3, which of course each spectator would have to have. Well the sums of money some of these hooligans are spending … .
Mr. Macfarlane
And sponsors may well come forward.
John Motson
… private enterprise in the way of a sponsor helping with the TV cameras, in the same way could a club with a little bit of initiative not get the sponsor to help with the sponsor's name on the ID card. In the case of a sponsor like, say, a local building society, it would be in their interest because they would have access to new names and addresses which might lead to accounts.
Prime Minister
Well, we are pushing them. I do think it is important when they go in for them if they go in for the best ones, which cannot be forged and do have this clear thing. It is a good idea. It is the number of turnstiles they say and then they have got to get them up. Popplewell says they have got to improve their turnstiles anyway as a matter of safety.
Mr. Macfarlane
We know what we have seen around the country. [end p14]
Prime Minister
But we are urging them to concentrate on the particular troublesome grounds first and again saying to them: “Please do not say it is Government's responsibility. It is yours!” and they have had plenty of warning.
Question (LBC Radio)
Is not one of the main dangers about identity cards the fact that trouble-makers are by all means going to be kept away from your grounds but you are going to just simply transfer the trouble on to the streets and, as the Home Secretary knows, there are numerous fights, arrests, on the streets surrounding grounds on some match days.
Prime Minister
Yes, but look! If we are just going to throw up our hand in horror and say there is nothing that can be done because you are going to transfer it … I do not believe that. If we identify these people, if we get them with severe sentences. First, a lot of them think they have the anonymity of the crowd or the streets. We have got to strip that anonymity away. That is why we want more television vans with the latest cameras—to get them before the courts, to identify them, the moment they think they are anonymous. Yes, there may be problems outside, but the police have full powers outside and they may stop them if they fear there is going to be a breach of the peace. They already have powers to stop people going to a place where they think there is going to be a breach of the peace. So we have got to do what we can, and what we can is very considerable [end p15] and catching them and having them with sharp sentences will be a very different world than the world we have been in.
Home Secretary
I would add to that that all the studies there have been of this indicate that the mass psychology of getting to the ground, the ground and the match being the focus, is what is important. If they really thought they were not going to get in maybe to start with there would be frustration and they would just go to the venue and cause trouble outside, but it would not be focused in the same way and I just do not believe that after very long they would go to places where football is played in the knowledge that they are not going to get in. The police would be very much better able to deal with that and I think you would find it would be dissipated, the numbers would be smaller, and the police would have a much easier time.
Prime Minister
We have got to do everything we can. So many of you have talked to me about tribal warfare, gaining territory. Some of the videos we have seen, they do not go for the football match; it is a form of tribal warfare, gaining territory from the others. And a lot of those are not people who would like to spend some time inside prison. We have got to use the deterrents we can. [end p16]
Speaker
Would legislation, Prime Minister, that you intend bringing in, allow for the confiscation of cards for all football hooliganism and related offences, whether inside or outside the ground?
Home Secretary
That would be for the club. There would be a much more powerful penalty than that. There would be the power, if the cards were introduced, for the courts actually to make it a criminal offence for them to go to a football match for a particular of time, so that quite apart from having cards or not cards, they would be in breach of an order, and there is a precedent for this you see, because when a few years ago there was a spate of attacks on pub owners, publicans, legislation was introduced actually by a private member's bill which gave the courts the power to issue an exclusion order banning a person from going to a particular pub or in a particular location and this is the precedent really for this.
Tony?
I gather that the Home Secretary still cannot guarantee that if enough supporters from an away team turn up at a ground the police chief in charge will not say: “Please let them in!” which torpedoes the whole idea.
Prime Minister
Not necessarily. I think a lot will not come. This is why I say you cannot guarantee everything in life, but you have [end p17] got to do what you can. There is no way in which we can stop all of them getting there. In various articles which I have read, they come sometimes in cars. There is no way in which you can stop all of them getting there. They may in a particular case have to do that. That would be up to the police at the time, but in the new era may well use different tactics or have more people outside. We can do everything we can, and we must, and try to whittle away at the real hooligans. What I am trying to warn you is I beg of you do not say the first time we get an incident, the whole thing has failed, because it will take a time to build up all the defences against it, with the clubs, with the police powers—we have not got the public order act so we have got the other one through—and with the all-ticket matches or no away supporters. It will take a time.
Speaker
If they know that numbers can override any prohibitions then they will come in numbers.
Prime Minister
You may find that they cannot get anywhere near the ground. You will recall that the police have ordinary powers to stop people from getting to the place where they apprehend a breach of the peace.
Home Secretary
You will recall—I am not suggesting a parallel—in [end p18] anything other than the legal sense—but in relation to the miners' strike the courts have upheld the power of police to intercept people quite a long way away if they have grounds for believing they will cause a breach of the peace if they get any further.
Prime Minister
Those are normal powers. They do not need extra legislation. I think for the first time we are getting all the powers together and adding to them and getting the cooperation of the clubs to deal with it and I did say to them, not only the thing about responsibility, but there must be no question of either Brussels or Birmingham or Brentford or Luton and Millwall or some of the others fading from their minds, because they have not faded from ours.
David Miller ( “The Times” )
The discussion and the whole crisis has been precipitated by a football match abroad, rather than at home. We are discussing …
Prime Minister
Not quite, not quite, you remember. We were all utterly appalled when we saw the Luton against Millwall. You will remember that one and remember that the police had great difficulty in getting control at Luton. [end p19]
Home Secretary
And indeed, it was that which led to the talks first.
Mr. Macfarlane
On the first of April.
David Miller
What I was wanting to say was that all these measures are designed to control our affairs at home. What I think would concern many people is that the exclusion of English teams does not apply to the national team, that a great deal of the trouble over the past 10 years or so has involved the England team playing abroad, and I think people will remain concerned about the capacity of the Government to control the travel of our supporters to England's matches playing away.
Prime Minister
We cannot do it without the cooperation of UEFA and FIFA, which is why we are trying to get them to have certain rules, and if touts are simply going to sell tickets outside it is going to be very difficult, but they will of course have to have strong policing in the grounds. I seem to remember that in Spain they have very strong policing in the grounds.
Mr. Macfarlane
I think David Miller is quite right on this. We cannot do it unless we have the governing body, the European Football Association, actually impose their will upon all the member [end p20] countries of European football and make certain that it sticks both at club and international level, then of course we cannot move forward. That is why we have set up this initiative and that is why we are chairing the group now from this country which will be working closely with UEFA to ensure that there are binding regulations before every match, and of course, our attention is now turning to the Scottish club matches which will be taking place over the next few months.
David Miller
We well know from experience and Mr. Brittan has said he does not think many people will turn up at matches if they cannot get in, we know that hundreds, if not thousands of people do turn up at international matches on speculation and gather outside grounds and that the foreigners, the argument that I get back all the time from both civil administrators and football administrators is “What can we do until your country can take some steps to prevent these people from being here once they have been shown to be guilty?” Once they have been found to be as it were a known football hooligan. But they still have the passport and they can still travel.
Prime Minister
I wonder if our jurisdication extends overseas.
Home Secretary
I do not think this is a practical proposition because you are talking about large numbers of people. The prospect of large numbers of people significant in terms of public [end p21] order problems for foreign countries turning up, all of whom have been convicted, I do not think that really is the problem, and unless and until somebody is convicted, on any view there is not any action that you could take in relation to overseas. If they are convicted of a serious offence they are likely to be sentenced to a term of imprisonment.
Prime Minister
We have that agreement with the European Convention which I stated in the House: if they try them there … . so often they want to get rid of them out of their country … . so I said: “All right, you convict them and we will have them serve the sentence in our prisons so do not be put off from giving a real stiff prison sentence; do not be put off from doing that by believing that they will have to serve it in your prisons because we can make them serve it in ours.”
Home Secretary
And to add a note of topicality, that Convention comes into effect today!
Prime Minister
… . convicted of hooliganism. First, one of the great things about Europe is that you are supposed to be able to travel freely, you do not even need a passport. This is part of the greater freedom of the European Community. You go into a Post Office and get one of those daily travel things. I do not [end p22] think the people at the Post Office counter can have a kind of black list of people who cannot get a daily thing.
Speaker
It seems strange you could stop someone going into Millwall football ground and you cannot stop them leaving the country.
Prime Minister
It is not strange at all. It is easier to stop them going into Millwall football ground than the many many exit areas from leaving the country, because you have got to look at everyone leaving the country, everyone. Everyone would have to go through immigration or immigration control.
Lady Speaker
We have talked about the problem of a large number of people arriving outside a ground. Justice Popplewell suggested a ban on away fans. At a normal derby match between somebody like Spurs and Arsenal you are going to get thousands and thousands of fans turning up. Is there any plan to actually implement that idea this season, of banning away fans?
Prime Minister
Well that is for the Football Association and we tackled them about it, because I believe there are some chairmen of clubs who believe that you should only have home supporters who [end p23] are all identified at the club and you should ban away fans and I am not going to identify them but I do know some of them personally, believe that you should have one of those enormous big television screens—he thinks it would be easy to get some sponsors—so they watch the match on the screen; their families can go; there are various other attractions arranged in and around the football grounds so it becomes a family day; you get a good deal of income in and he believes that it would be a kind of new dimension to football and a very attractive one. It would take about two years to do it. In the meantime you may, by arrangement at certain matches, the Football Association may say all away fans banned.
Female Speaker
But it would be up to the FA to actually do that?
Prime Minister
Up to the League or whoever is in charge of the game to do this.
Female Speaker
And what was the response of them to that suggestion?
Prime Minister
They are very much aware of that because Mr. Justice Popplewell puts that and it is one of the things they are considering. Alternatively, they say that when there is an [end p24] away match the chairman of the away club should have only a very small number of tickets and take responsibility for the people to whom those tickets are issued. Now, that would be quite a responsibility to take and some may prefer not to take it, but you have put your finger on the things Mr. Popplewell said and which is being considered by I think the League and the Football Association and certainly to my knowledge by some of the chairmen of football grounds.
Lady Speaker
If I can follow it up with one quick question. You were talking about restoring football to how it was before. Do you think if you put in all these regulations you will not destroy the game altogether as a national sport?
Prime Minister
I think if we do nothing the game will be destroyed because we cannot have the violence we have seen at football matches and outside football matches as they have carried on their tribal warfare outside as they did at Cambridge. If that is the price of football, we cannot pay it, so therefore what we are trying to do is everything possible. If you have got any extra things which are practical, please tell us, but they have got to be practical. What we are trying to do is build up a series of actions which first will identify the hooligans and stop them and progressively reduce this terrible scourge on football. [end p25]
Speaker
Prime Minister, as you know, membership of the Football League confers a national status on some otherwise unimportant and fairly unprepossessing towns and people are very keen to keep this and bitter about losing this. We know from the few towns who have gone out of the League.
Now, the cost of this legislation, the recommendations, is generally estimated could put between 20 and 30 clubs out of business. Does it concern you at all that 18 of those are in Conservative marginal seats?
Prime Minister
Do you know that never occurred to me.
Mr. Macfarlane
Some of the other sports are just as important to us of course in those areas. As a matter of fact, Sir Norman ChesterChester recommended that in 1969 that perhaps we should come from 92 down to 60. That may be an optimistic figure now.
Prime Minister
At the moment, as you know, football has a very considerable income, about £90 million a year and obviously they are a little bit worried about their income this coming year, but it is a very considerable income, but the marginal seats had not occurred to me.
In sorting out these practical things you come up against all sorts of things. You will be familiar with them and you think you could belong to both Liverpool and Everton. You could [end p26] have membership cards for both I would have thought. What happens then when you have a match between the two? Whether you are a home or away supporter I do not know. But there are all sorts of things and you cannot do everything. What you have to do is what you can do.
Who has not had a go? And then we will come back on a second round!
Patrick Barclay ( “The Guardian” )
Prime Minister, you spoke before about tougher sentences as part of the deterrent for football-related offences. How can you be sure these tougher sentences will be forthcoming from the courts?
Prime Minister
We cannot, but you will remember, I think it was Lord Justice Lawton who gave that judgment that where there is physical violence, where there is violence at a football match or outside, there would normally be a custodial sentence, and I think in Cambridge they handed out good and long ones and they are very much aware I think, particularly having had Mr. Justice Popplewell doing the Report, of the function of the law in meting out exemplary sentences and you have put that around to all magistrates. Some magistrates I think have only 6 months and they really should put them up to a Crown Court if it is a bad case. [end p27]
Home Secretary
There is every indication that the courts well understand the position and the Court of Appeal's guidelines are very widely known.
Question
I would like to start on the subject of money. If hooliganism is looked on a social problem, why are the Government so resolute in not conceding any money to football in the reduction of, say, the tax on betting or any other reduction in tax?
Prime Minister
First, the tax on betting. It is a tax on betting which applies wherever there is betting. It is not a tax on football; it is a tax on betting.
Secondly, as you know, the Pool Promoters Association £7 million goes to the Football Trust from them, £5½ million has normally gone to the Football League for the lists of matches each week and hitherto—I know they are having difficulty with television—£3.1 million on television. So there is not really very much shortage of money and if we say we are going to pour in money, think of all of the other sports which have nothing like the income that football has that are going to come along and that would not be right.
We are having a look to see if we do need to put in any money in view of the fire and the safety precautions, so we are not excluding it. It is a professional sport and when I [end p28] look at £800,000 transfer fees I think they cannot be short of a bob or two.
Speaker
If that money were distributed … .
Prime Minister
As I said to them yesterday, if that is right, you are saying it would not matter if it were £10 million. I do not believe it. I do not believe it and of course, it is not distributed. You know better than I do. Correct me if I am wrong, but I got it from the horse's mouth yesterday. Some of it does not go around; it goes to the actual person transferred.
(GARBLED COMMENTS RE 10%; of £18 million)Prime Minister
That is £1.8 million. Think what we could have done with that and also £3.¼ million went out of the Football Ground Improvement Trust, not to improving extra grounds, because there were no applications to improve extra grounds, which is astonishing, so the League went along to the Football Ground Improvement Trust and said “Hey, cough up!” and so they just increased the grant to improvements that had already been done. So they are not short of cash. [end p29]
Speaker
The game has been mismanaged financially.
Brian Moore (ITV)
Just one very small point and I think most of us around the table realise that conflict on the terraces has got to be subdued as much as possible and away fans and so on are very important, but I think the thing that upsets so many people are the flags and banners and I would have thought that there might be some thought given to a ban on flags and banners, banners in particular which at best are provocative and at the worst deeply offensive, which have caused an awful amount of conflict amongst rival supporters.
Prime Minister
What, the ordinary colours? You do not mean the ordinary colours.
Brian Moore
The banners that are held up.
Prime Minister
Oh, the insulting banners. Well I must say would not some of these be called insulting behaviour?
Home Secretary
Some of them might well be.
Prime Minister
Within the normal rules of insulting behaviour. I agree. [end p30] And sometimes, some of the … the way some of the opposing side players, some of the signals they give to the opposing side supporters could be greatly improved.
Home Secretary
It was very noticeable at our meeting that the Football Authorities very much accepted that there was a responsibility on the players, because they are the people whom the followers certainly regard as setting an example. If they set a good one, it will not necessarily be followed; if they set a bad one, it is very likely to be followed.
Prime Minister
And they did tell us that the players are very much aware of the responsibility. I think some of the players have been absolutely appalled at some of the things that are going on—well most of them have.
Brian Moore
I think myself it is premeditated the trouble on the terraces.
Prime Minister
We have got to get at that. You mean it is a calculated battle for territory?
Brian Moore
Absolutely! [end p31]
Prime Minister
And some of you have been writing about it, particularly over the summer, and believe you me, I have read it all.
Lady Speaker
Prime Minister, will you be going to a football match this season? Do you plan to go and have a look at what is actually going on?
Prime Minister
Well, I had not thought of doing so, but if they see me, I am not sure that it would be helpful. Would you understand that? I genuinely say that and if I go I do not like to go incognito. I do not get very far if I do. I remember some years going shopping, putting on a scarf and dark glasses, and I had not gone about 100 yards down the street and someone said “Hallo Mrs. Thatcher!” . I would like to go. I would not like to put an extra burden on the police with any burdens that they have already to bear, but I can only say to you that we have watched some of the videos … . they really are frightening … . you are right … . it is a battle and has to be treated as such.
Speaker
The first response by a club who are entertaining this season when they are asked to make the game all-ticket is we cannot do it, we have not got time, the match is a fortnight away. Does that show cooperation from the clubs? [end p32]
Prime Minister
Well, I wonder who is going to insure them.
Speaker
Fulham have been asked, not told, to make it all ticket.
Prime Minister
This is a matter which if this is so you must get on to the Football Association. You see the Football Association have the rule that you have to have taken all reasonable precautions. I do not know if they do not take all reasonable precautions whether they will get any company to insure them against damages.
I say the responsibility is theirs and the Football Association because it is played under the Football Association. One moment. Leeds is a Football League and one of the troublesome towns.
Speaker
In the very first game the other club said “We will not make it all ticket!”
Prime Minister
You see, at the moment we cannot ban a game. We may have to take powers under the Public Order.
Home Secretary
In practice, under the proposed legislation, the police powers include the power to limit the size of the gate. Now that [end p33] action means that it could be reduced to very small numbers which is tantamount to making it not a feasible proposition for the game to be played, but that is no more than the Football Association can do, because Mr. Millichip made clear to us that they have the power if they regard it as desirable either as a punishment or for other reasons, to actually require games to be played without any spectators at all and that has been done.
Prime Minister
I had the impression that he is very cooperative, Mr. Millichip. He does take it every bit as seriously as we do. He should, of course, because it is his game, but we are on to them about that.
Speaker
There has not been anything like authority.
Prime Minister
No. That is his problem. That is why I keep saying it is their responsibility.
Speaker
Carrying on from that point that was made about the European Convention and it starting today.
Prime Minister
Yes, it is a convention of the Council of Europe. [end p34]
Same Speaker
A conviction established in another country can be upheld in this country?
Prime Minister
Can be served.
Home Secretary
It is a case of serving a sentence, whereby somebody who is sentenced in another country to a term of imprisonment can come to this country to serve that term in prison and the relevance of it in this context is that some countries when faced with a lot of British hooligans may think that the cheapest and simplest thing rather than clutter up their jails is to pack them off home straight away. If, on the other hand, they know that if they take the trouble to prosecute them and there is a conviction and a prison sentence, they can then ship them back to England to serve the sentence. That might encourage them to take action which otherwise they would not bother to do.
Prime Minister
That is a reciprocal convention which applies to the countries which signed the Convention. It is a European Convention, not the Community, but the Council of Europe Convention and I said although it had not taken effect at the time of the Brussels thing, we had already ourselves ratified it and we would in fact have honoured it before it took effect. The difficulty of Brussels is they did not get, I think, [end p35] sufficient evidence to do very many prosecutions.
Question
Home Secretary, can you give an assurance that there will be enough room in the prisons to accommodate all these hooligans or will … . have to be used as a penal colony?
Home Secretary
We are building the prisons extremely fast. I opened one in Norfolk only a couple of months ago. There are two more coming on. There is overcrowding in prisons, but I have at no stage suggested that the proper penalties should not be imposed because of it.
Prime Minister
Will you forgive me? I am, as Bernard InghamBernard said, already late, but thank you very much for coming and perhaps we might meet again. But as I said, we cannot expect to stop everything, but we have got to have a look at the beginning. As I said to them yesterday, the first few matches, the first six weeks I think, are critical in setting the tone for the whole season.
Has it been worthwhile your coming?
Chorus
Yes, very much.
Prime Minister
Thank you. I did not want to waste your time!