News

Alcohol, Class and Cash: The Real Game Behind the Push to Bring Alcohol Back to Football Grounds

Alcohol, Class and Cash: The Real Game Behind the Push to Bring Alcohol Back to Football Grounds

Efforts to change Scotland’s long-standing policy on alcohol in football stadia have gathered pace this summer. In what has been misleadingly been billed as a ‘pilot’ (implying robust, independent design and evaluation), several SPFL clubs, backed by the governing body, have applied for licensing exemptions in order to expand the sale of alcohol in stadia to very small numbers of fans.

In this blog, we look at who is behind the push to bring back alcohol to Scottish football grounds, analyse some of the most common arguments in favour and discuss whether this is the direction of travel the country really wants to embark on.

The new football season is upon us. August is that special time when football fans forget past disappointments, set aside their (often well-founded) doubts, and dare to dream!

Unfortunately, this season, Scotland’s football authorities, encouraged by the alcohol industry, appear to be putting aside doubts (often well founded), and dreaming of pound signs, when it comes to making alcohol available for general sale within football stadiums.

Alcohol has not been available for general sale within football grounds in Scotland, within sight of the pitch, since legislation was introduced to stop it following scenes of extreme violent disorder at the 1980 Scottish Cup Final between Celtic and Rangers, part of a trend of increasing violence around football at that time.

The authorities concluded, and not without justification, that alcohol had been a contributory factor to this violence, and the link between alcohol and violence is borne out by much research since.

It only takes a quick glance at recent headlines to see that violence and disorder in Scottish football hasn’t gone away. A similar cursory glance of the news will tell anyone who has missed it that Scotland’s long-term problematic relationship with alcohol continues too – with alcohol deaths hitting a fifteen year high in 2023. Liver disease in Scotland is projected to rise by 54% by 2044.

So why are we discussing reintroducing alcohol for sale in football stadiums? What are the arguments in favour? And who is making them?

The ‘Fairness’ argument

This argument appears in various guises, and at face value, it could seem unfair and that football is being treated differently. It’s well known that fans of Scottish Rugby can buy and consume alcohol at rugby matches. It’s also possible to buy alcohol at other sports like ice hockey.

Typically, whether made by media commentators or some fans, this argument will be expressed along the lines of:

 “You can buy a drink at the rugby, so why should football fans be treated differently? Are you saying that football fans can’t be trusted? Football has changed since the violence of the 1980s.”

So, let’s deal with this argument head on. Firstly, the vast majority of football fans do not engage in violent disorder, whether they’ve had anything to drink or not. They support their team and enjoy their day out. Sadly, a sizeable minority do engage in violence, and this can affect the experience of all fans. For those directly affected, the impact of trauma or injury may be long-lasting.

The inconvenient truth is these incidents seem to be on the increase; the Daily Record noted that “Our national game saw a meteoric rise in unwanted flashpoints last season.”. This led the SFA Chairman, Mike Mulraney, to call for greater use of banning orders to combat the problem.

Incidents included Aberdeen defender James Mackenzie being hit in the face by a seat thrown by one of his own fans, missiles being thrown during three Old Firm encounters, widespread violence in Glasgow around the Old Firm League Cup Final, a street brawl following the Scottish Cup Final between Celtic and Aberdeen, and calls from the Chair of the Scottish Police Federation for increased stop and search powers after a disabled Rangers fan was attacked with a hammer by rival supporters.

Following his 13 year-old son being left with a badly swollen face and black eye after he was beaten by a group of men outside Firhill Stadium by rival ultras fans of Greenock Morton, one Partick Thistle fan compared the uptick in violent incidents to the very situation in the 1980’s that we keep being told is in the past.

“Violence between fans used to happen regularly in the 1980s. Football was mad. I thought these incidents were confined to history in Scotland.”

And we’re off and running for season 2025-26, with one of the so called ‘pilot’ fixtures selling alcohol already having seen a violent incident take place post-match.

Is it really fair to increase the risk of alcohol-fuelled violence and disorder at matches for the sake of those who want a drink — at the expense of fans who just want to focus on the football and to feel comfortable bringing their kids along to support their team?

 “Violence in Scottish football is just an Old Firm problem.”

An argument particular to Scottish football. There’s not much love lost between the fans of the rest of the clubs in Scotland and the Big Two – who of course famously have nothing but admiration and respect for each other….

It can be easy to pin all of Scottish football’s issues on the country’s two biggest clubs and rivals.

But while Old Firm matches are clear flashpoints, or ‘high risk,’ we’ve documented a bulging catalogue of incidents from the 2024/25 season – and stretching back over the past 10 years – spanning multiple divisions and clubs, whether big, medium or small.

It may be uncomfortable, and we might wish it weren’t so, but the fact is, football still has a problem with violence and disorder that rugby or other sports simply don’t.

“Why should the majority of fans be ‘punished’ for the behaviour of a minority?”

The alcohol industry like to use ‘punishment’ narratives to argue against restrictions to the sale of their products – which double up as an effective way of convincing us all that alcohol is something we can’t or wouldn’t want to do without.

The reality is, Scottish football fans have been following their teams and enjoying the highs and lows that supporting a team brings without alcohol being on general sale in grounds for over 40 years – and would continue to do so for another 40 years without more alcohol.

“They have alcohol in European stadia without any problems, so why not here?”

Proponents of changing the current alcohol policy at football grounds will note that alcohol in football grounds is sold all around Europe without any problems.

Few European countries face Scotland’s levels of alcohol deaths and related harms — which makes this comparison with Europe’s stadiums a strange one.

Ask your average Joe about Scottish or British drinking habits compared to those of our European neighbours, and invariably they’ll concede that Europeans have a different relationship with alcohol. They’ll acknowledge that in the UK, we tend to binge drink and drink to excess, whilst our European neighbours don’t.  We generally admit — though not proudly — that this leads to more alcohol-related violence than in many European countries.

It seems odd then that in one context we’ll acknowledge that the UK is quite different when it comes to alcohol, our drinking habits, and the consequences of those – but in another, football, the same people who would agree with that characterisation get very riled up by the self-same suggestion.

“Treating football fans differently to rugby fans is class warfare!”

Without making sweeping generalisations, and bearing in mind that football’s popularity stretches across all social classes and genders, it might be fair to say that football remains the ‘working man’s game - whatever clubs ticket price rises might say!.

Historically, football certainly was the game of the working-class man. The expanding popularity of football, or apparent capture of football by elites has been much bemoaned, perhaps never more famously captured than by Roy Keane’s biting critique of the ‘prawn sandwich brigade’.

To those pushing to bring back alcohol, the real enemies of the working man’s game aren’t greedy investors or shareholders pricing out fans and filling the terraces, but the ‘finger-wagging’ public health experts. This argument may even resonate with many fans. However, you don’t have to look far before you find the fingerprints of big alcohol companies and their well-placed friends in the media, sports bodies or at industry funded ‘think tanks’ pushing this narrative.

But there’s a darker element to the ‘class warfare’ argument. If we accept that football was, or to some extent still is, the working man’s game – then it seems utterly perverse to argue that reintroducing the widespread sale of alcohol in football stadia puts you on the side of the working man.

That’s because no social group experiences the damage caused by alcohol more keenly than working class men. The most recent data shows that two thirds of alcohol deaths in Scotland were in men, with deaths 4.5 times higher in our most deprived communities, versus those in the most affluent.

Data on hospital admissions adds to  the picture, with men twice as likely to be admitted to hospital as women for conditions attributable to alcohol, and those in the most deprived areas of Scotland six times more likely to be admitted to hospital than those in the most affluent areas.

Men in Scotland’s most deprived areas also face a higher risk of violent crime — and alcohol is involved in about 35% of those incidents.

When the evidence is clear that increasing the availability of alcohol increases alcohol consumption, which in turn increases alcohol harm, and that those effects are felt most acutely by the people held to be the lifeblood of football, how can anyone seriously argue that encouraging more drinking is in their best interests?

Following the money – how football IS different

Returning to the complaint about football being treated differently to other sports let’s acknowledge something. Football IS different! Football is by far the most popular and most watched sport in Scotland and the UK (globally in fact), making it our most culturally dominant and important sport.

Why is that important?

Of all sports, football already provides the largest, most attentive and loyal audience for Big Alcohol companies to market their products to, and they do so via club sponsorship deals (including shirts  and hoardings), league and football association sponsorship deals and TV advertising during matches. These companies know that this advertising drives consumption, and recruits the next generation of drinkers  - and that’s why they spend big money on it. They have successfully created an association between alcohol and football so that for many of us having a pint is part and parcel of match day.

With so much money potentially at stake, these alcohol companies employ all manner of tactics to amplify arguments and opinions in favour of changing policy, including devoting some of their substantial resources to generating positive media articles, quotes from fans, and even opinion polls or ‘research’ - to create the sense that this is the obvious or inevitable direction of travel, and that it has broad support.

But while alcohol companies have much to gain, research commissioned by the SPFL and SFA suggests that clubs themselves would be unlikely to generate large revenues from selling alcohol at stadia due to the costs in modifying the layout of grounds and in increased compliance costs in managing risk and meeting licensing requirements.

We need to ask whether the interests of the alcohol companies really line up with what’s best for fans, clubs, or the sport itself.

Time for a rethink on alcohol and sport?

Alcohol and sport aren’t exactly the most obvious or natural of bedfellows. At its best, sport is a pursuit or hobby that is open to everyone, and that can help us to live healthier, happier lives. Practicing sport isn’t just good for our physical health, but for our mental health. Playing and following a club brings people together, cements friendships and strengthens family bonds between grandparents, parents and children.

What place does a toxic, addictive substance have in sport? A drug that is strongly implicated in violent crime and domestic abuse (especially around football), and which wrecks friendships and families, killing 50 Scots per week.

Instead of discussing whether it’s fair we can get a pint at the rugby and not the football, perhaps we should be discussing if and why alcohol should have a role in sport and what messages this sends to our kids?

Perhaps we could imagine a future for Scottish football where the match day experience keeps improving — safer, more family-friendly grounds with improved, inclusive facilities, perhaps including the expansion of safe standing sections? A place where the focus stays on the football and the atmosphere, not on drinking or dealing with its fallout.

That’s the kind of match day most fans want.

By David Barbour, Senior Coordinator (Communications)