Or is it?
The police have new powers called section 27 to ban anyone from an area for 48 hours if they suspect you of causing disturbance under the Violent Crime Reductions Act. The idea is that you can be removed from an area, such as the local club land for being DUI and potentially disorderly. However at least the South Yorkshire and Greater Manchester Police Forces have been using the order to remove large numbers of football supporters from whole counties under suspicion of potentially causing disturbance. They have at least detained Stoke City and Plymouth Argyle supporters in pubs (where it is purported to have been no disturbance) regardless of age, cautioned under Section 28 and escorted out of the county and beyond (Stoke were removed from Manchester as far as Stoke and Argyle from Doncaster as far away as Birmingham). This is regardless of whether these supporters originally came from where the escort took them or the age of the supporter.
The Football Supporters Federation has launched a campaign against what is considered to be a misuse of the Act. More details here.
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