Prevention of football violence

Key message

The Social Research Unit at the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services was commissioned by the Norwegian Police Directorate to develop and conduct a systematic search on the prevention of football violence.

Football violence may be defined as anything from spontaneous spectator violence to more organized violence between supporters - even outside of stadiums. The problem of football violence is especially well known in Britain, but is becoming increasingly common in Scandinavia as well.

• We searched for relevant studies and reviews in the following databases: ISI Web of Science, BIBSYS, NORART, National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), ERIC, Sociological Abstracts, Social Services Abstracts, Social Science Research Network (SSRN), PsycINFO (OVID), OpenGrey, Cochrane Library, CRD, Social Care Online, Det Nationale Forskningscenter for Velfærd SFI, Libris (Sverige), Google Scholar and Campbell Library, as well as potentially relevant websites

• A total of 1671 references were identified

• 48 studies and reviews were found to be relevant

• None of the included primary studies seemed to employ robust study designs to assess the effect of the intervention of interest

• Very few of the studies examined preventative interventions within violent supporter groups

We have sorted and listed all included references, but we have neither read the papers in fulltext, critically appraised their methodological quality, nor synthesised their conclusions.