Majority of MP’s support banning football hooligans from stadiums

A parliamentary majority wants to ban hooligans from football stadiums. They pledged support for a VVD and SP motion to make doing so easier. MPs are annoyed by the almost weekly disturbances in and around the football stadiums, RTL Nieuws reports.

VVD parliamentarian Ingrid Michon and SP colleague Michiel van Nispen want professional football clubs to share the information they have about hooligans with the police. “[The police] can then impose a stadium ban on the hooligans so that they have to sit at home during their favorite football club’s match and not in the stadium,” Michon said to the newspaper.

“Attending football should be a party and that requires better monitoring of stadium bans and better sharing of data,” Van Nispen added. “That is not happening enough at the moment, and the Minister must arrange that it goes better.”

Football clubs are responsible for security within their stadiums, and the police are responsible for public order outside. According to the MPs, clubs may know who is causing problems in the stadiums but don’t share that data with the police. So the hooligans can continue their bad behavior.

That must change. “Because then football becomes a nice Sunday afternoon to enjoy with the family again,” Michon said.