Makes sense – Its reasonable to assume that some people who abuse their partners may like football, and that some people who abuse their partners and like football would get angry that England lost.

Its not difficult to imagine a scenario whereby some people who abuse their partners and like football and get angry that England lost then abuse their partner.

“On June 27, the day that Germany trounced England 4-1, 353 incidents were recorded, the highest number this year apart from January 1.

Now I’m no statistician, or psycholgist but those events on those dates seem to suggest to me that alcohol is the culprit here, not the World cup.

There’s an elephant in the room here.

Before making this point I’ll say I’m a football fan, so I’m not wishing to tarnish all football fans or stop people enjoying football.

But perhaps the way we “do” football too often encourages men to play to a particular gender stereotype which when they get home expresses itself in control over women rather than partnership with. Just a thought.

Agreed w/Captain Swing @2. Don’t domestic violence figures rise around xmas time for the same (alcohol) reason?

This isn’t news, it’s been known for a while that domestic violence increases during football tournaments. I think its simplistic in the xtreme though to attribute a cause effect mechanism to football, it’s far more likley that;

Football watching is by defintion often done at home, the violently inclined are therefore more likely to attack their partners, rather than a stranger as they would on a normal night in the pub

Football watching is often accompanied by alcohol consumption, and as 70% of violent crime is perpetrated by people who have been drinking, alcohol is more likely the cause than football

The football culture inflicts much social harm.

The bonuses of many bankers verge on insignificant as compared with the salaries of professional footballers:
http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/blog/sow_experts/post/The-top-50-footballer-salaries-this-season?urn=sow,220011

We hear a lot about greedy bankers but who complains about greedy footballers?

Historically, there’s nothing new about the association between football and violence:

“Traditionally, football hooliganism has been seen as first occurring in the late 1960′s, and peaking in the late 1970′s and mid 1980′s before calming down following the Heysel and Hillsborough disasters. However, incidents of crowd disorder at football matches have been recorded as early as the 19th Century. During a match in 1846 in Derby the riot act was read and two troops of dragoons called in to deal with a disorderly crowd, whilst pitch invasions became increasingly common from the 1880′s onwards.”
http://www.liv.ac.uk/footballindustry/hooligan.html

Here is an abstract to a paper on the subject:
http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=210321

I will see if I can find anything else.

Our ancestors were wise.

“Cause public proclamation to be made,” declared an Act of 1369,”that everyone of said City of London strong in body, at leisure times and on holydays, use in their recreation bows and arrows.” Popular amusements such as handball and football were banned on pain of imprisonment.
[See entry for "Archery" in Weinreb and Hibbert (eds): The London Encyclopaedia (1993)]

In medieval times, the English longbow was a relatively inexpensive weapons system for warfare and easy to emulate but its effective use in battles depended on acquired skills and practice so there was a raft of laws encouraging archers to practise in their leisure time.

In the hands of a skilled archer, the longbow was a deadly weapon. Curiously, it seems that in those times the authorities were unconcerned at the prospect of archers wandering around with longbows. Deployment of English archers was decisive at the battles against the French at Crecy (1346), Poitiers (1356) and Agincourt (1415).

@ 6 – It’s also traditionally seen as a British problem depite widespread violence at games in Turkey, Italy, Spain, South America (in particular makes UK hooliganism look like a toddlers playtime) Russia and Germany.

I disagree that it inflicts “much social harm”. The majority of people attending football matches are law abiding and want nothing more than to be entertained. When was the last time enyone was entertained by a banker ?

@ Quiet Riot Girl – there’s more evidence here:
http://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp4869.html
This is not just an English/soccer phenomenon.

Thanks chris I didn’t think it was.

#6 Are you serious about never hearing anyone complain about greedy footballers?

@6 – The way footballers and bankers earn their money is different though isn’t it.

@13: “The way footballers and bankers earn their money is different though isn’t it.”

Bingo! But that doesn’t mean there aren’t harmful consequences in both cases.

With football, many lads hope to get picked as a celebrity footballer and become wealthy so think there’s no point bothering with boring school work.

On council estates, I’ve seen promotional hoardings for football academies for 6-year olds. Of course, only a minute fraction will ever make it to a premier division team and without good schooling they will find it increasingly difficult to find and hold a good job when unskilled manual jobs are becoming increasingly scarce. Less than half 16-year old boys get the benchmark in GCSE exams of 5 subjects A*-C grades, including maths and English. Girls do much better.

“In 2008, 44.4% off boys achieved five GCSEs A*-C, including maths and English – this rose to 47.1% in 2009. For girls, the figures stood at 52.4% and 54.4% respectively.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8456466.stm

Another consequence of soaring footballer salaries is that with the exception (of most) premiership clubs, most of the league clubs make losses and have to get bailed out by generous patrons.

Alcahol must be a major factor but football is tied with a distorted view of masculinity & class. There is an unstated equation – real men = working class = heavy drinker = violent = likes football. The extreme masculine image of the Trades Unions is one result.

@15 – Bob thats much too simplistic a statement based on your opinion. And even if this were true this has nothing to do with your original point.

The way bankers earn their money has a huge knock on effect on the economy, good or bad.

Footballers get paid a lot. To kick a ball. Ball goes in or ball doesn’t.

Interestingly, Staffordshire police’s awareness campaign saw any possible rise in domestic violence as part of a range of alcohol-related incidents and football. In other words: people (mostly men) get stupid drunk – trouble follows. England losing badly to Germany on a Sunday afternoon just amplifies the potential for trouble.

“Footballers get paid a lot. To kick a ball. Ball goes in or ball doesn’t.”

And that has social consequences – especially on the attitudes of working class lads towards schooling:

“Though white children in general do better than most minorities at school, poor ones come bottom of the league (see chart). Even black Caribbean boys, the subject of any number of initiatives, do better at GCSEs”
http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14700670

Visit council estates and observe the obsessive footballing of many teens.

In the run up to the 1997 election, Blunkett had the brilliant (or totally daft) idea of starting homework classes at football stadiums:

“Mr Blunkett was at West Ham United football club to mark their launch formally: West Ham is one of the clubs hosting study centres. The others are: Barnsley, Blackburn, Bolton, Bradford, Charlton, Crystal Palace, Derby, Everton, Huddersfiled, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Man United, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham Forest, Port Vale, Portsmouth, QPR, Reading, Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Stoke, Sunderland, Swindon, West Brom and Wolves. Mr Blunkett thanked players and teacher training volunteers from Newham College for their efforts to give children extra help on top of their schooling. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/211159.stm

Never mind whether girls would want to go to football grounds or whether parents would want their young teens going out of a dark winter’s evening to football stadiums to do their homework.

@18 – Bob I live on a council estate and where I live its mainly the under 13s who seem to play footy in my experience.

Strangely enough I have even seen some of those black caribeean boys playing football so im not sure what point your trying to make.

I couldn’t access the stats in the economist, could you give me the figures? Im interested in how many of the pupils getting bad grades had an obsessive interest in football. Im happy to ignore every other social/economic factor.

Of course, domestic violence follows a seasonal curve. It increases during the summer, especially when its hot.

But lets not let facts get in the way of a bit of footy bashing.

totally agree with Paul Barker on class/masculinity. Middle class and non-football fans also beat up their partners. Maybe when their shares take a dip on the stock market, or when The Cricket is rained off.

The football/alcohol/frustration argument sounds relevant but its not helpful to use it to put down a whole group of men.

The link between the World Cup and domestic violence is highly dubious, the Radio 4′s Law in Action programme looked at it a fortnight ago and found that it is made up by using all the usual statistical games to generate dramatic numbers.

Genuine research simply doesn’t support the claim.

@19: “I couldn’t access the stats in the economist . . ”

Try, instead, this from the BBC website:

“Government figures show only 15% of white working class boys in England got five good GCSEs including maths and English last year. Among white boys from more affluent homes – 45% achieved that level of qualification.

“Poorer pupils from Indian and Chinese backgrounds fared much better – with 36% and 52% making that grade respectively.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7220683.stm

The Economist article (with a pay barrier) shows a bar chart in which a smaller percentage of poor white boys achieved the benchmark of 5 GCSEs *A-C grades, including maths and English, than any other ethnic group – in this context, poor is taken to be pupils at school who are eligible for free school meals.

The challenging aspect is why on earth did Blunkett think that attaching homework centres to football stadiums would motivate youngsters to do their school homework? See quote and link @18 above.

As a parent, it certainly never occurred to me to encourage my children to go off to football stadiums to do their homework but then, in a lifetime, I’ve only once been induced to watch a professional football match, an experience I found extremely boring. However, I must admit to being an enthusiastic rugby player when at school. As they say: football is a game for gentlemen played by hooligans while rugby is a game for hooligans played by gentlemen.

For information:

“Police will send football fans text messages urging them to avoid violent behaviour in a bid to halt the rise in domestic abuse associated with games.

“Around 17,000 supporters at Sunday’s Hibs v Hearts derby will receive the texts via bluetooth asking them not to be violent to their partners.

“An extra 750 officers have been drafted in for Sunday’s Celtic versus Rangers match at Celtic Park.

“Police said domestic abuse rises over new year and around derby matches.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8436620.stm

So the police set up and publicise as special hotline for reporting DV and then get an increase in reported incidents?

Sound a lot like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me.

Seriously, if there is a genuinely link between football and DV then there should, in theory, be discernable localised increases in reported DV incidents that corresponds with results in, say, the Premier League.

So, If Man City lose a home game then there should a rise on DV reports in Manchester on the same day, while if Man United lose a home game, you should see the same sort of rise in South London, etc.

Personally, I doubt you’ll find any such relationship because any correlation here is an indirect one in which the common factor is alcohol consumption.

As ever, correlation does not imply causation.

Unity: So the police set up and publicise as special hotline for reporting DV and then get an increase in reported incidents?

Sound a lot like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me.

Not really. The hotline wasn’t launched the day before the England / Germany game and closed straight after.

Unity: the headline story is bollocks, but the paper linked by Chris @10 seems to be what you’re asking for.

Quiet Riot Girl: yes, domestic violence is committed across all classes – however, it’s also very clearly more prevalent at lower income levels (which makes sense, given the higher stresses and lower levels of control over life-in-general that come with poverty). However, football’s also prevalent enough across all classes that this is more or less irrelevant to the discussion anyway…

No, Sunny, the hotline wasn’t opened the day before the game but, nevertheless, the existence of such a hotline and the publicity given to it would be expected to result in an increase in incident reporting, which is no bad thing in itself.

Hence:

Professor Paula Nicolson, from the Department of Health and Social Care at Royal Holloway, who specialises in studying domestic violence, says it is now widely recognised that the inevitable alcohol consumption during large-scale sporting events increases men’s violence towards their female partners.

She said, “Each case will be different but women need to be more aware that they are at risk during this period. Women who live with violent partners get used to their violent behaviour which they may not have ‘labelled’ domestic violence. With increased publicity about domestic abuse during the World Cup, there is likely to be an increase in people coming forward to report the violence but it is usually only after the attack has happened.”

Victim psychology is a significant factor here.

DV victims often fail to report abuse because they either don’t label their experiences as abuse or because they attribute their partner’s behaviour to other factors, e.g. pressure at work, the stress of being unemployed and a whole bunch of other stuff which they invest with a significant and, to their way of thinking, ‘understandable’ cause.

England losing a football match does not carry any such significant meaning and is, consequently, much less likely to be rationalised away as being an ‘understandable’ reaction to a situation, and its this – the feeling that they’ve been abused for a trivial reason – that prompts some women to report abuse where they might otherwise have not gone to the police.

The apparent association with football is, in effect, a crude and grossy oversimplistic proxy for a much more complex set of issues, which is what I’m trying to drive at here.

Unity:

Personally, I doubt you’ll find any such relationship because any correlation here is an indirect one in which the common factor is alcohol consumption.

Not if you don’t like football, hence this well-intentioned but unfortunate cock-up from the US regarding the Superbowl and domestic violence.