Italy: less accidents in the leagues in the first half of the 2018-19 season compared to in 2017-18

"Fewer accidents, fewer police forces deployed and more spectators in Serie A (from 24,500 to 25,200, or +2.8%)", are the main trends in a study conducted in Italy by the Department of Public Safety of the National Observatory for Sporting Events (a body under the Ministry of the Interior), after the first phase of the Italian professional football championships (Serie A TIM, Serie BKT and Lega Pro), on 13/02/2019.

The number of matches with incidents and injuries decreased from 30 to 15 (-50%), the number of injured civilians from 23 to 19 (-17%) and the number of injured police officers from 24 to 15 (-37.5%). However, the Observatory acknowledges that the improvement is partly due to the very poor figures recorded in 2017-18.

Regarding the mobilisation of the police force for football matches, the number of law enforcement officials went from an average of 211 to 207 (-2%) per match in Serie A TIM (20 clubs), from 106 to 117 (+10%) in the Serie BKT (19 clubs in 2018-19) and from 43 to 40 (-7%) in the Lega Pro (2 groups A and B with 20 clubs and 1 group C with 19). In the first…