Assessment of football grounds for player safety

Professional football clubs have a duty under UK health and safety legislation to carry out risk assessments of their activities; one requirement under this duty is to assess the impact of ground layout on player safety. To assist clubs in meeting this requirement, a Ground Player-safety Score (GPS) has been developed that is defined by a base-factor, determined from the position of perimeter fencing in relation to the pitch, but which is degraded when other hazards, e.g. advertising hoardings, photographers and TV equipment, are present in the areas contiguous with the playing area. This approach has been used to assess the layouts of forty seven English and Scottish professional football clubs. The assessment showed that only 42% of the English and 71% of the Scottish clubs achieved an acceptable score. However, in all but a few cases the clubs could modify their ground layout to improve the GPS and reduce risks to players without capital expenditure. With these changes, acceptable GPS figures could be achieved by 92% of the English and by 100% of the Scottish clubs.