Dutch football assoc. bans fewer supporters from stadiums

The number of football supporters banned from Dutch stadiums saw a significant decrease this past season. In the 2015/2016 season Dutch football association imposed 579 stadium bans, compared to 890 in the previous season, according to the annual report of the Central Information Point Football Hooliganism, ANP reports. The KNVB attributes the decline to the fact that there were no major incidents this past season. In the 2014/2015 season riots around the match between FC Den Bosch and FC Oss led to 98 stadium bans and riots in Rome around the match between AS Roma and Feyenoord led to another 80. The number of incidents in and outside stadiums decreased from 822 to 733. The police were called in 697 times, compared to 852 in the previous season. And the number of hours the police worked around matches dropped from 301 840 in 2014/2015 to 273 938 this past season. The KNVB is pleased wit the figures, but not overly optimistic. "Over the years we've seen that the numbers linger around the same level", Gijs de Jong, operational director at the association, said in the report. He points out that a number of measures were in place to reduce incidents this season, supporters who have tickets to attend a match has to use certain passports and are taken directly to and from the stadium. "That should not be necessary." "We made the problem manageable with measures that affect all football fans." De Jong said. "The challenge now is to take measures that only affect the bad apples and make football more fun for the real fans."