Collaboration between stewards and police assisted by the integration of an advanced CCTV system at Everton FC

During ESSMA’s Safety & Security Workshop in Copenhagen, David Lewis - Head of Security & Stadium Safety Officer - shared insights with participants on how Everton FC have strengthened the collaboration between stewards and the local police and their advanced CCTV system to improve the overall safety at Goodison Park.

Collaboration with local police

Everton FC have made an agreement with local police to improve the collaboration between stewards and police officers. They have clearly defined the tasks of stewards and the tasks of police officers and have created a risk assessment schedule for each game.

The stewards will:

• Share information with police
• Take care of the overall safety during the event
• Create contingency and stewarding plans
• Deal with low level poor behaviour
• Manage ingress, egress and any type of overcrowding

While the police will be responsible for:

• Preventing and detecting crime
• Preventing breaches of the peace
• Enforcing sporting event law
• Activating contingency plans (if necessary)

Police officers will be deployed in the stadium at the discretion of the police commander in “hotspot” areas. Stewards will be responsible to provide a first intervention while the police will be ready to back them up if required. 

CCTV system

In addition, Everton FC introduced a CCTV camera system at Goodison Park to help stewards and police in their role to provide a safer stadium. In total, 8 of Dallmeier’s Panomera cameras were introduced around the stadium to cover 40,000 seats. These cameras are an additional tool which the club can use efficiently to catch fans who have perpetrated the ground regulations. 

The system captures images of everything that happens inside the stadium and allows the safety personnel in the joint control room to rewind the footage and zoom in, so they can identify exactly who committed the offence. 

They are then able to track this particular fan back to his seat and can inform stewards or police officers to intervene and guide him out of stadium or arrest him if necessary. This system has the added benefit of immediately providing proof of the committed offence if the act would be disputed.  

 Main takeaways

• A good CCTV camera system can help you identify fans by tracking them back to their seat
• CCTV camera systems can provide clear evidence
• On a longer term the CCTV system can start to prevent violent incidents from happening at the stadium, because people will know that they will be caught
• A CCTV system can’t replace stewards and security personnel, but it will make their job a bit easier

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