{"id":782166,"date":"2026-09-25T12:42:05","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T12:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/782166\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T12:42:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T12:42:05","slug":"football-polices-alcohol-tragedy-link-sickening-mp-ian-byrne-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/782166\/","title":{"rendered":"Football police’s alcohol tragedy link ‘sickening’, MP Ian Byrne says"},"content":{"rendered":"

An MP has criticised a football policing organisation over comments, he said, linked the Hillsborough disaster to the debate over alcohol restrictions at matches.<\/p>\n

Liverpool West Derby MP Ian Byrne described a statement from the UK Football Policing Unit (UKFPU) as “appalling”, after it referenced the Taylor Report and football-related tragedies while discussing whether fans should be allowed to drink alcohol in view of the pitch.<\/p>\n

The UKFPU had been responding to Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s suggestion that the ban on drinking alcohol in football stands could be reviewed.<\/p>\n

The policing body has since issued a further statement saying it had not intended to link alcohol with Hillsborough.<\/p>\n

Ninety-seven fans died as a result of the crush at an FA cup semi-final at the Hillsborough ground in Sheffield.<\/p>\n

The Taylor Report came out of the 1990 judicial inquiry into the 1989 disaster. <\/p>\n

After a 27-year campaign by victims’ families, the behaviour of Liverpool fans was exonerated and new inquests concluded those who died were unlawfully killed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In response to Burnham’s suggestion on Thursday that the ban on alcohol in football stands could be changed<\/a>, police chiefs warned against relaxing the law.<\/p>\n

A UKFPU spokesperson said alcohol often played “a significant part in violent and disorderly behaviour” among a minority of football supporters.<\/p>\n

They added: “Following a number of football-related tragedies, changes in legislation were implemented after the Taylor Report for good reason and we are currently in the longest ever period without a significant football related disaster.”<\/p>\n

Byrne said those comments were “sickening” and risked making an association between Hillsborough and alcohol.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An MP has criticised a football policing organisation over comments, he said, linked the Hillsborough disaster to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":782167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-782166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/782167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}