imago images Beer, football
English football fans will soon be able to quench their thirst at football matches with a cold beer. The ban on gesture juice is to be dropped.
Since 1985 there has been a strict ban on alcohol at the seat in the English professional leagues. The fans are not allowed to take a refreshing hop drink inside the stadium. The rule was introduced 36 years ago to control the hooligan problem in English football.
It is still possible to buy a beer in the English stadiums. Beers can be bought at stalls inside the grandstand. Football fans also kept gathering in pubs around the stadiums before the games.
36 years after its introduction, the beer ban is now set to fall. At least once as part of a pilot in the fourth and fifth English leagues, as Tracey Crouch, who chairs a commission for the involvement of fans in English football, now revealed to the “Times”.
The conservative politician cited London's sixth division club Dulwich Hamlet as an example. The club would lose its drinks revenue if it moved up to the fifth division. “They openly told us that because of the drinking rules, they couldn't afford to move up,” said Crouch. Plus, because of the ban, fans would be drinking a lot of beer in no time.
With the fall of the alcohol ban, the second much discussed rule would be overturned within a very short time. It was only on Wednesday that it became known that clubs may allow a limited number of standing places from January 1, 2022, subject to certain conditions. This has been banned since the Hillsborough disaster in which 96 Liverpool fans lost their lives.
