From this season, the footballing authorities, the Premier League, The FA and EFL, have united with supporter groups and law enforcement organisations, including the police and the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service, to crack down on the issue of football tragedy abuse.
Football tragedy abuse is offensive chanting, gestures or behaviour based on football-related tragedies, such as the Munich air disaster of 1958 involving the Manchester United squad, Heysel, the Bradford stadium fire, the Hillsborough disaster, and the murder of two Leeds United fans in Istanbul.
This season, new measures, actions and sanctions to tackle dangerous and illegal behaviour by people at football matches will include addressing people who participate in football tragedy abuse.
People who are found guilty of offences face stadium bans and criminal prosecution.
Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher, who is now a Sky Sports pundit, joined Sky Sports News reporter Ben Ransom and Joe Blott from the Football Supporters' Association (FSA) to sit down with two people who have been affected by tragedy abuse: Charlotte Hennessey, who lost her father at Hillsborough, and Gareth Senior, a Leeds United fan who was friends with the two fans murdered in Istanbul.
Hennessey and Senior explain how tragedy chanting at matches or via posts on social media cause significant distress to them and other victims’ families, survivors and club fans.
"We love rivalry in football," says Carragher. "But it's when it goes too far, and I think we are definitely at a stage where it's great that we are coming together and doing something about this.
"The day and age that we live in, certainly we've got to do it as much as we possibly can. And all supporters, when we are in this type of environment, [must] come together and say, 'This is not right. We can't accept this going on.'"
As well as the new tough punishments, the Premier League is working to educate young fans about tragedy chanting.
It is developing education programmes around the impact of football tragedy abuse into its Premier League Inspires and Premier League Primary Stars programmes.
