Inside the shocking rise of cocaine in football: The English game has a serious problem as arrests increase, fans create a toxic mix with alcohol and a gateway to addiction develops

The most obvious example of flagrant cocaine use was around the Euro 2020 final between England and Italy, captured by camera phones and broadcast around social media and then re-purposed for an even bigger audience in the Netflix series 'The final: Attack on Wembley'. And when England reached the Euro 2024 final, fans with glazed eyes were there again to see them take another shot at continental glory against Spain. Well, they got to see some of the game.

"There were just queues of England fans for the cubicles at half-time," the journalist Ken Early said on the Second Captains podcast. "This was the biggest game England have played in however long and half of them missed the first 15 minutes of the second half because for some reason nobody wanted to use the urinal."

At least they were showing more discretion than some of their fellow England fans back home during the tournament. During a news broadcast of a crowd of revellers in Newcastle celebrating the penalty shootout win over Switzerland, a man could be seen stuffing a white powder up his nose.

GOAL witnessed a similar scene while waiting for the tube home from the Euro 2020 final: a man snorting powder while standing up, getting it all over his clothes. It echoed an image that had gone viral earlier that day: a video of a man wearing a bucket hat doing cocaine while hundreds of people wildly cheered. The man was later named as Charlie Perry and it was not even the most shocking thing he had done that day.

That was when he dropped his trousers in front of a crowd, popped a flare up his bottom then lit it on fire. "There were no rules that day. I was off my face and I loved every minute," Perry told The Sun, revealing he had begun drinking at 8.30am, got through 20 cans of cider and "banged a load of powder" before storming into Wembley without a ticket.

But it's not just anecdotal evidence or viral videos which point to a surge in the use of the drug at football. Researchers from a 2023 study by the University of Stirling found match-goers and authorities reported a marked increase in supporters taking cocaine. Use of the drug was described by police as "excessive" and a bigger factor in violence at matches than alcohol.

The increase in cocaine use at stadiums was discussed in the UK parliament in 2023,when Peter Houghton from the Football Safety Officers Association told MPs that the toilets at one Cambridge United game "looked like a launderette – there was that much powder everywhere". A 2021 study by International Journal of Drug Policy found that around 30 percent of people polled claimed to have witnessed cocaine being consumed at football stadiums.

The ubiquity of the drug at matches is also putting some people off going to matches altogether. One fan of a Premier League club told GOAL he no longer attends away matches precisely because cocaine use was so prevalent and he did not want to be near it.

Authorities have gotten tougher amid the rise of cocaine use at football. Around 200 people were arrested for possession of cocaine "in and around" British stadiums in the 2022-23 season. As of 2022, anyone convicted of taking or selling Class A drugs at stadiums can be banned from attending matches for up to five years. A Charlton Athletic fan became the first supporter to be punished by the legislation. He was banned from attending matches and barred from travelling within two miles of the team's ground, The Valley. When England play away from home, he has to surrender his passport.

Of course, football fans are far from the only ones taking the drug. Cocaine use is so widespread across society that the Office for National Statistics declared it to be the second most-used drug after cannabis in England and Wales over the last decade, with 2.1 percent of adults aged 16 to 59 using it and 3.8% of people aged 16 to 24 years. And the increase is having a deadly effect on the population.

The ONS reported 1,118 deaths involving cocaine in 2023, which was 30.5% higher than the previous year (857 deaths) and nearly 10 times higher than in 2011. Males accounted for 79.2% of the deaths involving cocaine. The ritualistic nature of football and the fact people attend games so regularly, often with the same people, make it a dangerous gateway towards regular use.

"With any drug, if you are using it on the weekends, when you're going to go watch a game, go to a party, or spend some time with friends, you're creating a habit around this. And for a lot of people, this can be quite an expensive habit, and it can be something that leads to addiction as well if you're not careful about it," Andre Gomes, communications lead for drugs information charity Release, tells GOAL.

"You're definitely creating the conditions for dependency and for addiction, you know, partly because it's such a social environment. It's such a social substance. You go and have a couple of lines, and then people get a bag in, and then it just leads to you associating going to watch football or having some drinks with using cocaine as well. And you're just leading to a more and more chaotic environment."

Football and cocaine are back in the spotlight right now thanks to the new British film Marching Powder, starring Danny Dyer. He plays a man in his mid 40s whose marriage and life are falling apart due to his addiction to 'dickie' and his tendency to get into fights while following his un-named team. The film features numerous scenes of men sniffing powder on coaches and in the middle of pubs, fuelling their pre-match scraps.

But Dyer told GOAL: "Listen let me tell you something now, we are not glorifying it alright, we are not glorifying it at all. People think from the advertisement we are, but you will need to watch this film and understand how f*cking ridiculous it is. You know geezers pushing 50 still doing that, nutting people. You’ve gotta grow up, you’ve gotta grow up and that's the point of this film.." Dyer has also said cocaine "destroys lives" and he would know, having spent time in rehab for addiction to drugs, among them crack cocaine. Dyer's character in Marching Powder is unemployed, a lousy husband and a terrible role model to his son. Not exactly someone to emulate.

The film might give off the impression that cocaine is something that only thugs are interested in to fuel their fights. The reality is that many typical fans partake in it each week, without indulging in violence or anti-social behaviour. Two fans of the same Premier League club who spoke to GOAL and for obvious reasons asked to be kept anonymous, said the main motive for doing it was to be able to keep drinking throughout a long day going to the match.

"When you're on a European trip the harsh reality is the game doesn't kick off until late in the evening. You're drinking earlier than usual. And when you're in your 30s and 40s that becomes quite tiring," said one fan, who attends the majority of his team’s games. "The reason it's popular among fans is it allows you to drink more and for longer periods. In my experience it's not to get involved in violence or feel any more confident or change in personality, it's more for stamina reasons. It's an adrenaline hit, you feel awake, lively and you can carry on the party. No one wants to be that guy who goes to bed early or can't even get to the game."

Asked if he ever worries he might have a problem, there is a long pause. "The thought has crossed my mind on a number of occasions," he says. "The way I talk myself out of that thought is I only ever do it socially and on weekends, never on my own. I know my limits. I know when I've had enough."

He estimates that he takes cocaine roughly once every five games but he knows people with a more regular habit: "I know plenty of football fans that will not go to a home game without picking up,” he says. “It's part of the matchday routine."

The other fan consulted said he was introduced to cocaine at an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley. He never worried about his habit as he said he never did it that often and he would never seek it out himself, only joining in with friends. He recalls ill-advisedly doing it in his seat at an away match at Arsenal. While his team were "sweeping away" the Gunners, he was too paranoid about being spotted to actually enjoy the game. He has not done it for the last two seasons, with the birth of his first child playing a role in him reining it in. He continues to enjoy going to matches. Asked why cocaine was appealing in the first place, he says, with no hint of irony: "You can drink more but stay sober."

Mixing cocaine with alcohol, however, is like playing with fire. The two substances metabolise to form a third, Cocaethylene, which is far more powerful and dangerous. Gomes explains: "A lot of people aren't aware of it. It's in your body for a much longer time. It has a very high body load so it can lead to a series of health complications. It can put a lot of stress on the heart and a lot of stress on the liver.

"People that have underlying heart conditions, respiratory conditions can also be impacted by it. Poor cardiovascular health can be impacted significantly by having more cocaethylene inside your body."

Gomes is advocating for a less punitive approach from the UK government and police and for a more open conversation about drug use. He adds: "What has been really frustrating is just how the messaging around this has been to crack down on cocaine, crack down on drug use, but you're not really seeing any information about how [cocaine use] could actually be impacting your health, how you could be reducing that. There's not really a culture of that."

While football fans are quite happy to brag about taking drugs - just listen to some of the chants on the terraces which celebrate hedonism - honest conversations about their dangers are much rarer. And Gomes wants to see that change.

"We need to build a culture of community, of care. That's the whole thing around football, isn't it? You're supposed to be a community, and there's a unity inside of a club. You should be looking out for each other's health," he says. "Right now there isn't a conversation that's happening about reducing these harms. Because of this intense government narrative of cracking down on their use, you're actually encouraging a culture of silence. What we actually need to acknowledge is that it is happening. Let's make sure that people are aware of the harms. Make sure that they're being safe about their use, and then people will be able to take their own informed decisions about whether they should be using it or not, or whether the amount that they're using of cocaine is too high, whether they can control it, whether they want to reduce it, and where to look for help."