A new study using data from Greater Manchester Police and looking at the kick off times of Manchester United and Manchester City has concluded that day drinking and early kick-offs are linked to rise in domestic abuse after football matches.
The study by researchers at the Centre for Economic Performance looked at over 800 matches in the City between 2012 and 2019 found that the hourly rate of incidents decreased by five per cent during a match, it began increasing after the final whistle and peaked around ten hours later.
Tom Kirchmaier, director of the policing and crime research group at the centre, told the Observer that he believed the findings had “big implications” for policing and the timing of matches. “Police services were pushing for early kick-offs, because they’re easier to police,” he said. “People aren’t drunk and then they’re easier to manage. But what we actually substitute is a kind of visible crime for invisible crime. You have less crime around the stadium and so on, but you have issues more than eight hours later at home.
“It is actually much more problematic to intervene then. It also comes at quite huge economic, social and personal cost. What we uncover here is that there are huge problems to these early kick-offs, which nobody has really thought about. The increase is also only seen between partners living together – there was no similar rise in ex-partner domestic abuse.”
“The increase also only seen between partners living together – there was no similar rise in ex-partner domestic abuse.”
However researchers found that the rise in abuse was only seen when games were scheduled at midday or in the afternoon, with no increase when games kicked off after 7pm.
The research also found that a shock defeat for either Manchester club had no effect on the rate of domestic abuse.
