The UK's most senior officer with responsibility for football believes the game is "struggling" to deal with the growing cases of disorder - and has called for a review of the costs of policing matches.
Deputy Chief Constable Mark Roberts - who oversaw the policing of English football fans during last year's World Cup - believes the rise in violent incidents is linked to the increasing strain on the public purse.
Figures released for the 2017/18 season show an annual cost of £48m to police all 92 professional grounds - but forces were only able to recover £5.48m from football clubs.
DCC Roberts believes the squeeze on matchday policing has been reflected by recent incidents such as the attack on Aston Villa captain Jack Grealish or the five Newcastle fans charged for pitch invasion at Bournemouth.
"I think we've been saying for two years this is a growing increase we've more incidents of disorder within stadiums as well as outside," he said.
"I think everyone is beginning to realise now that we really are seeing the impact of a number of factors, but one of them being fewer officers in and around football.
"I think it's been pretty apparent to everyone we've seen a real increase in the numbers of disorders - a six to seven percent increase in hate crime and disorders going all the way through the leagues, which has to be a major concern.
"We've seen some appalling incidents and I think that's really given rise for concern by everyone and I think that's driving people look at what we can do.
"I think there's a recognition from everyone the current situation isn't good enough, we've gone backwards from where we were.
"You look at racism in football that was something we'd largely eradicated, we've seen that coming back.
"We've seen players being assaulted on the pitch that's something we haven't seen before.
"This is something we've sadly been through before and kind of resolved, post 80's and 90's there was a great focus on it, because everyone recognised there was a problem we worked together and we solved it.
"We now need that focus again and it will require some investment.
"We're really struggling to deal with some of this because of the financial arrangements around football.
"We're not able to adequately cover the costs of putting officers into the grounds and that's having an impact on our ability to make sure people stay safe.
"It won't be the entire solution but part of the solution will be a greater presence of police at and around football so we can manage some of these issues.
"If people are engaged in hate crime or criminal acts the best deterrent is to see them arrested."
Under current legislation, clubs only have to pay for match-day policing which takes place on their land, meaning forces meet the rest of the cost outside of this boundary.
Roberts says this is now unmanageable and the costs are impacting on other policing priorities - and he wants legislation changed to make football pay a bigger part of the bill.
"All that money that we can't recover has to be taken from other places, so it means we are giving a lesser service to the public, a lesser service to the communities," he said.
"So we are really caught in a trap in trying to manage the risk in football but also our commitments to the broader community. It's not a tenable position.
"And when you look at some of the figures [In football] they are quite eye-watering.
"Last year the Premier League paid agents £211m, that's actually more than the budgets of 27 out of 43 police forces.
"It's important to acknowledge that the clubs are paying what they are obliged to pay under the current framework.
"But we need to have a framework that recognises that police have to put far more people into it than simply in the grounds, it's in the perimeter of the grounds and the approaches to the grounds.
"We're not talking about a profit here, we are talking about recovering the cost."