WHUST wins BBC retraction of West Ham hooligan claim

WHUST has secured a rewrite by the BBC after it published an inaccurate and exaggerated report calling West Ham fans “hooligans”. The story was circulated to local papers and “cut and pasted” by several other journalists too.

The story was initially headlined:

London Stadium hooliganism costs taxpayer £500,000

The opening line said:

Hooliganism during West Ham United's matches at London's former Olympic stadium has cost the taxpayer more than £500,000 this year.

After intervention by WHUST, the BBC amended the headline to:

London Stadium anti-social fan behaviour costs £500,000

The BBC London political editor also changed the opening line to:

Behaviour by some away fans during West Ham United matches at London's former Olympic stadium has cost the taxpayer more than £500,000 this year.

BBC Complaints said:

“After considering your point we have made some further amendments to the article, including removed the reference to “hooliganism”.

London Assembly evidence

The story came from a London Assembly budget committee hearing with the London Stadium owner LLDC. At that hearing the LLDC CEO Lyn Garner made a number of statements that the BBC selectively reported without verification. Crucially, the BBC exaggerated the content of Garner’s statements.

Asked about bad behaviour at the ground costing extra, Garner promised to calculate the cost and send it in writing. When pushed to estimate the added costs from bad behaviour, she said “half a million” but the BBC reported this “bad behaviour” as “hooliganism”.

You can see that part of the Assembly meeting below:

LLDC evidence challenged

The LLDC made a number of other statements that were open to question, claiming there were additional costs involved in stewarding the extra European games due to West Ham’s success.

Garner said:

“We've seen West Ham do really well, which is really good. They've been successful. They've been in Europe in 2021 and 2022. That means we have to cater for more matches. The European games have been quite violent at times and evidence of really difficult behaviour. For the Anderlecht game we saw seats being ripped out of the stadium and thrown onto the pitch. That means more stewards, more police.”

The Concession agreement allows the Club to hold 25 matches a season with no change in our rent. It can carry over unused matches for up to four years. We are still using up unused matches from previous years, so there is no excuse to say the extra matches are adding to the costs as they should have been budgeted for in previous years.

Anderlecht pays the cost

Garner did make clear that the burden of paying for repairs falls on the club whose fans cause the damage. Unfortunately, the BBC continued to report that West Ham had paid this. Garner said:

“Where there is damage to the stadium, the football club pays for it and passes on the costs to the club responsible.”
The details of this are easy to find online as Uefa publishes the sanctions it imposes. Anderlecht was fined and ordered to repay West Ham for the damaged seats and toilets. WHUST has provided this evidence to the BBC but the story remains incomplete.

Living wage rise

Garner explained that the cost of stewards had gone up. She said:

"We are in a time when it is really difficult to get stewards into these jobs. Recruitment is really challenging into the kinds of levels. In addition, we have seen increases in the London Living Wage, which is absolutely right and that does help us to land people. We have to look around at other stadiums and what they are paying their stewards and make sure we are being competitive. We are facing really challenging times."

Trouble at football matches

Garner gave some factually incorrect details to the London Assembly that were reported without checking. She said:

“The premier League is reporting a 60% uptick in poor fan behaviour and arrests.”

This is not true.

The Home Office reported a 59% increase since the last season before Covid, but this was for all football arrests:

· The total number of arrests in England and Wales was 2,198 at a total of 3,019 matches.

· The arrest rate was 5.2 per 100,000 attendees.

· There were incidents at 1,609 of 3,019 football matches and 64% were categorised as low risk.

· Only 156 matches (10%) had high risk incidents.

There were 95 arrests of West Ham fans in the 2021/22 season - the most of any club:

· Only 38 were for public disorder offences and only 61 arrests were at home games.

· However, the average home attendance for the season was 62,450, the second highest of any club, and there were 27 home games. That is 61 out of 1,686,015 attendees, which is 3.6 per 100,000 attendees.

· As was made clear, the European supporters were a significant problem.

Make your own mind up: This is the Q&A session about numbers:

Other media

The BBC has a local democracy reporting service that syndicates its stories to local and national newspapers. Although this was updated to reflect the fact that it was away fans that caused the problem, it continue to use the term “hooliganism”. WHUST has asked for the syndicated version to be amended too.

Other sites that had copied and pasted the BBC story were also chased up and amended their content.

Calling out the BBC