Data Driven Planning in Football Policing

The policing approach to the operational running of football events remains largely analogue, relying heavily on traditional intelligence assessments and risk categorisation to inform match planning, resource allocation and costs. This approach is widely utilised and relies heavily on the match commander assigned to the policing operation, their planning teams using an analogue risk management matrix along with their skills and experience to inform their judgement of the level of risk that each football match presents. This generic approach, however, presents a margin of risk, owing to the historically manual interpretation of the available intelligence, which can therefore lack the precisi…