A possible trial lifting of football's alcohol-in-stands ban

Key takeaways

• The restriction on drinking alcohol within sight of the pitch at designated football matches in England and Wales is set out in the Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol etc.) Act 1985, not in competition rules, so clubs and leagues cannot relax it themselves.
• The Guardian reports that Burnham, an Everton supporter who still goes to games, has said there is a case for trialling an end to the ban to align football with rugby and cricket.
• The ban does not prohibit alcohol inside grounds: it is sold and consumed on concourses and in hospitality areas, and the restriction bites only where the pitch is visible.
• Any pilot would need a legal route through the existing criminal-law framework and would sit alongside each ground's safety certificate, which is how the phased introduction of licensed standing was handled.

The prime minister's signal on a trial

According to the Guardian, the prime minister has indicated he may be prepared to lift the ban on drinking in the stands, describing the current position as unfair to football supporters when spectators at other sports face no equivalent restriction. The report notes that he suggested there was an argument for a trial rather than an immediate, permanent change.

That distinction matters. A signal of willingness to test a change is not a legislative commitment, and the source material does not set out a timetable, a mechanism, a list of participating competitions or any consultation process. None of that detail is known from what has been reported, and it should not be assumed. What the intervention does is move a long-running supporter campaign from the margins of football governance into a statement by the head of government.

The Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol etc.) Act 1985

The rule that shapes every matchday drinking policy in English football is a piece of criminal law. The Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol etc.) Act 1985 created a set of offences around alcohol and designated sporting events: possessing alcohol while entering or trying to enter a ground, being drunk on entry, carrying alcohol on certain journeys to matches, and — the provision at issue here — consuming alcohol in an area of the ground from which the event can be viewed.

Two features of that framework are routinely misunderstood. The first is that football grounds are not dry. Alcohol is sold on concourses, in bars and in hospitality areas, and supporters drink it legally before kick-off and at half-time. The restriction applies to the seating bowl, not the building. The second is that the Act operates through designation: it covers specified categories of match, broadly the senior professional and international game, rather than every game of football played in the country. A supporter watching a non-league fixture may be under no such restriction at all, which is part of why the rule strikes many as arbitrary.

Because the restriction is statutory, it is outside the gift of the Premier League, the English Football League or individual clubs. A club that wanted to allow drinking in its stands could not simply decide to do so. Changing the position requires Parliament, either by amending the offence or by creating a power to disapply it in defined circumstances.

The comparison with rugby and cricket

The argument reported by the Guardian rests on parity between sports. Rugby union, rugby league and cricket are not subject to the same prohibition on drinking within sight of play, and spectators at those events routinely drink in their seats. Football alone carries a statutory restriction aimed squarely at its crowds.

The historical explanation is one of public order rather than public health: the legislation belongs to a period when English football was governed as a crowd-control problem, and it sits alongside other football-specific measures such as banning orders and restrictions on travel. Supporter organisations have argued for years that the regime has never been revisited in light of how grounds are now designed, stewarded and monitored, and that the rule produces a perverse effect — concentrated drinking on the concourse in the minutes before kick-off and at the interval, precisely because supporters cannot take a drink to their seat.

The counter-argument, which any trial would have to take seriously, is that football crowds are larger, more segregated by allegiance and more densely packed than most rugby or cricket audiences, and that the operational risk profile is therefore not the same. Whether that difference justifies a different legal rule is the question a pilot would be designed to answer.

The fan-led review and the pilot precedent

The proposal is not new. The fan-led review of football governance recommended testing a relaxation of the rule in the lower tiers of the professional game, where crowd sizes and policing demands are smaller, before considering anything wider. That recommendation was not taken forward at the time. The Football Supporters' Association has continued to press the case.

English football already has a template for this kind of staged change. The reintroduction of standing accommodation was handled not by a single legislative switch but through licensed areas at a small number of early-adopter grounds, monitored by the Sports Grounds Safety Authority, with the evidence from those grounds informing a wider rollout. A pilot on alcohol could plausibly follow the same shape: a defined set of grounds, conditions attached, data collected on incidents and stewarding demand, and a decision point afterwards. The Guardian report does not say that this is the model under consideration, and it would be wrong to present it as settled.

Safety certificates and the mechanics of a pilot

Even with the statutory obstacle removed, a ground could not act unilaterally. Every designated sports ground operates under a safety certificate issued by the local authority, which sets capacities and conditions and is drawn up in consultation with the police, the fire service and the safety advisory group. Alcohol in the seating bowl would be a matter for that certificate: sightline management, aisle and gangway clearance, cup design, stewarding ratios and the handling of away sections would all need to be addressed ground by ground.

That is the practical reason why any change would arrive slowly and unevenly. Legislation sets the outer boundary of what is permitted; the safety certificate determines what actually happens at a given stadium on a given afternoon. A national relaxation would still produce local variation.

The separate position in Scotland

Scotland is governed by its own statutory regime, which is stricter still and effectively excludes alcohol from football grounds rather than merely from the stands. Any change made at Westminster would apply to England and Wales, and would not of itself alter the Scottish position, which is a matter for the Scottish Parliament. Reform on one side of the border would therefore widen, rather than close, the divergence within British football.

The shape of a possible reform

Taken together, the elements point to a change that is easier to signal than to deliver. The obstacle is a criminal statute, so the decision belongs to government and Parliament; the implementation runs through local safety certification, so the pace belongs to councils, police forces and safety advisory groups; and the evidence base that would justify a wider rollout does not yet exist, which is exactly what a trial would be for.

What the intervention reported by the Guardian changes is the political framing. For most of the period since the 1985 Act, the burden of proof has rested on those seeking relaxation. A prime-ministerial statement that the rule treats football supporters unfairly by comparison with other sports shifts that burden, at least rhetorically, towards those defending the status quo. Nothing has been legislated, no pilot has been announced and no grounds have been named. But the question has moved from whether the rule can be re-examined to how a re-examination would be structured — and, if it proceeds, football's alcohol regime would become one of the few matchday rules to be tested empirically before being changed.

Sources and further reading

• The Guardian, football section: the report of the prime minister's comments on trialling an end to the ban, which is the basis for this article.
• UK primary legislation: the Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol etc.) Act 1985, for the wording of the offences and the designation of matches.
• The Sports Grounds Safety Authority: published guidance on safety certification and the licensing of ground accommodation in England and Wales.
• The fan-led review of football governance and the Football Supporters' Association: the recommendation for a pilot and the supporter case for reform.