‘Nerve to call women emotional’: When England lost to Argentina, it came with a dangerous side effect. A dramatic increase in domestic violence calls

An Instagram post by beardedbeth has gone viral in just a day, racking in over 3.9 million views. Mostly because it highlighted a terrifying reality for the partners and children of a portion of English football fans. Following England’s 2-1 defeat to Argentina in the FIFA semi-final, there was a dramatic spike in domestic violence reports. In the video, Beth calls out the men who use football as an excuse to harm the people they are supposed to love.

“I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if it’s you, please do listen,” she said. “If you watched England lose last night and your first instinct was to get up from where you were, whether that be your living room or a pub or wherever you were, and go and find the woman that you’re supposed to love most in your life and the woman who loves you and batter her to the ends of the earth because a football game was lost that had nothing to do with her and nothing to do with you, then you are scum.”

Beth’s anger is backed by data. According to Worcester News, West Mercia Police experienced a surge in calls after the match. Between 10 PM and 11 PM alone, the force received 127 calls, 73 of which were emergencies. Tom Rance, the chief inspector at West Mercia Police Force Operations, stated, “This equates to one call every 27 seconds. The number of 999 calls was around double what we would usually receive in an hour.”

The worst is, the country expected it

Beth addressed this surge in her video. She claimed, “There are 999 call handlers coming out today and saying that even though they’ve worked in the profession for 5, 10, 15, 20 years, last night was the roughest night they’ve ever worked. It was the roughest night they’ve ever worked because they had so many category ones that they couldn’t keep up.” 

“Category ones is violence, by the way,” she explained. “They had that many women who were being battered by their husbands, by their partners, by their boyfriends, children being battered by their fathers that they could not keep up.”

In the comments section, one user pointed out the irony of the situation. One wrote, “And they have the nerve to call women emotional.” Another user shared a grim personal experience, stating, “I called off dating someone yesterday because they told me I’d have to ‘deal with [their] match day moods’.” Match day fervor can go beyond violence. At a recent Knicks game, a caregiver had to leave with her disabled client after other fans kept harassing them.

One comment went into detail. “Women are constantly being told we are the emotional, irrational ones even though the scientific research shows we handle stress better. Then we see things like this; men who cannot regulate their emotions to handle anything that even mildly upsets them. Their football team loses and they become domestic abusers, committing assault and battery on their family.”

The Guardian highlighted that prosecutors in England and Wales anticipated and warned of the rise in abuse during the tournament. Olivia Rose, the CPS national stalking lead, explained, “We often see more domestic abuse cases around major football tournaments like these. The point that we want to get across is that those responsible will be held accountable, and that we won’t hesitate to bring them to justice.”

Research from Lancaster University has even quantified this trend. Per reports, domestic abuse incidents increase by 26% when England wins or draws, and by 38% when they lose. It is strange to consider that this is the same game where a football giant, Haaland, turned into the internet’s baby girl.

Refuge, a domestic abuse charity, stated that only one thing is responsible for the abuse.  Ellie Butt, the head of policy and public affairs at Refuge, stated, “But no matter whether a team wins, draws or loses, football doesn’t cause abuse – abusers do.”

Beth echoed this sentiment in her video, rejecting any excuses for such behavior. She said, “If you’re about to tell me, I didn’t mean it, it was the booze, I was drunk. Stop f—ing drinking. I didn’t mean it, it was the football that gets me angry. Stop watching football. I didn’t mean it, I was on drugs. Stop taking f—ing drugs. Just stop. There is no excuse for ever putting your hand to a woman.”

As a solution, one commenter suggested an interesting approach. “I think it’s time for the entire England squad to do a campaign against domestic violence where SFX makeup artists use documented cases to make up the squad. Really drive home the effects of domestic violence by putting them on the players.”