The World Cup, Domestic Violence and Protective Court Orders

On 11 June 2026, Mexico will play South Africa in the first game of the 2026 FIFA World Cup being held in three different North American countries — Mexico, Canada and the US. It would not be an international football tournament without England entering it with a dream of “bringing it home“. Depending on your perspective, England’s chances of a successful tournament are relatively high and the nation, or most of it, will watch on with bated breath to see if Thomas Tuchel’s team can progress beyond their Group L matches against Croatia, Ghana and Panama.

Football has long since been called the beautiful game, but is there an ugly side to it? Solace, London’s largest domestic abuse and sexual violence charity, certainly thinks so. In the lead up to and during the 2018 World Cup, they ran a campaign called #StopItComingHome in order to highlight a profoundly worrying correlation between domestic violence and the performance of the England football team at World Cups. The link between a surge in domestic violence and the World Cup is not new — indeed, a 2013 study conducted by the University of Lancaster revealed the following:

• The risk of domestic violence increases by 38% when the England football team lost;
• The risk of domestic violence increases by 26% when the England football team won or drew; and
• Generally, domestic violence incidents will increase with each new tournament.

The data obtained during the Lancaster University study is now 13 years old and this World Cup will be the fourth one since the results were published. If it is indeed true that domestic violence will increase with each new tournament, what does that mean for people that find themselves in abusive relationships? What help is available to those in need?

The same concern is live in 2026. In the run-up to this year’s tournament, police forces across the country have launched operations to deter abuse and protect those at risk. Cumbria Police, for example, are running specialist patrols in nightlife areas throughout the tournament to deter domestic abuse, with Independent Domestic Violence Advisors based in the force control room to offer immediate support to anyone in crisis. Senior officers have stressed that football does not cause domestic abuse, but that the mix of heightened emotions and alcohol around big matches can escalate it.

What is domestic violence?

Domestic violence extends far beyond physical and sexual abuse. It also includes emotional, psychological and financial abuse that takes place in an intimate or family relationship. It can include neglect, controlling and coercive behaviours, manipulation, harassment, bullying and much more besides.

Domestic violence is not always obviously apparent. Controlling someone’s access to money, putting covert recording software on someone’s phone or computer or a tracking device on someone’s car or having someone followed are all behaviours that are capable of constituting domestic violence.

Domestic violence does not need to be prolonged or repeated. One incident alone is all that is needed to make someone a perpetrator of domestic violence.

If events of domestic violence are likely to increase by at least one quarter regardless of the outcome of England’s first three matches at this year’s tournament, it is increasingly important that anyone living in an abusive relationship knows what support is available. This can take the form of emergency help from the police by dialling 999 if someone is in immediate danger, finding out what local and national charities there are out there to provide practical advice and support and, importantly, what support might be available from the Family Court.

Protective Orders: what are they?

For anyone that has experienced domestic violence in an intimate or family relationship, they may want to consider seeking orders against the perpetrator of their abuse in order to protect themselves as much as possible from further incidents occurring. The Family Law Act 1996 introduced two specific types of protective orders that can be applied for. These orders, known as “injunctions” in the legal world, are designed to limit how people interact with one another in terms of their direct and indirect behaviours and can extend to forcing one party to leave a shared home in favour of the other.

The first protective order that can be applied for is a Non-Molestation Order, sometimes referred to as a Restraining Order to use the American terminology. A Non-Molestation Order is designed to prevent the person against whom it is made, i.e. the perpetrator of domestic abuse, from “molesting” the person that has applied for it, i.e. the domestic abuse survivor. There is no definition of what molesting means and that allows the court to take into account a wide variety of behaviours, having regard to all the circumstances of the case.

Examples of molesting behaviour have been found to include acts and threats of violence, hanging offensive posters up at the workplace of the person applying for the protective order, contacting the applicant in abusive terms (be that by phone, WhatsApp, email, text or any other forms of electronic communication), sharing intimate photographs of the applicant and sharing offensive posts and commentary on social media. In the cases that I deal with the explosion of social media has caused a real issue for survivors of domestic abuse given the speed at which a tweet or post can be shared and how difficult it can be to remove something from the internet when it is in the public domain.

A Non-Molestation or Restraining Order, once made, will set out in clear and unambiguous terms what the perpetrator of the abuse must stop doing. For example, it may say that the perpetrator must not contact the survivor, be that by telephone call, email, WhatsApp, text message, social media messaging or any other form of instant messaging — and in order to avoid a situation where the perpetrator continues their abuse via a third party, the protective injunction can often extend to preventing the abuser from encouraging, directing, recommending, persuading or suggesting that any third party should behave in a particular way towards the person that has had to apply for the Non-Molestation Order.

The second protective order that can be applied for is an Occupation Order, sometimes called an Exclusion Order. An Occupation Order is another form of protective injunction and is designed to expel the abuser from a shared home and grant the survivor of domestic abuse exclusive occupation of the property. These orders can also exclude the perpetrator from an area around the home, and they can govern practical considerations relating to the property, such as whom will bear responsibility for the payment of the rent, mortgage and bills, etc.

Protective Orders: who can apply?

In order for a domestic abuse survivor to apply for a Non-Molestation Order, they need to be “associated” with their abuser. Unlike the term “molestation”, “associated” has a specific legal definition within the Family Law Act but it is also a very wide definition. People are associated if they have been or are married, civil partners or cohabitants, if they have lived in the same household (other than by means of being a tenant, lodger or boarder), they have agreed to marry, if they have an intimate personal relationship with one another, if they are a parent of a child that may be at risk or they are relatives — and that includes parents, step-parents, siblings, step-siblings, step-children, grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.

Protective Orders: how do I apply?

It is a fundamental cornerstone of English family law that anyone that may have a court order made against them has to have the right to present their arguments as to why that order should not be made. However, there is a real friction with the cases that I deal with when it comes to whether or not a domestic abuse survivor should tell their abuser that they are going to be seeking protective injunctions against them, and understandably so. Survivors have often faced intolerable cruelty at the hands of their abusers and they fear the retribution from their abuser by standing up to them. So, when applying for any type of protective order, be that a Non-Molestation / Restraining Order or an Occupation / Exclusion Order, should a survivor apply without giving their abuser any notice, or should they give them advance warning?

First and foremost, any notice given to a respondent to an application for a protective order should usually come from the applicant’s solicitor in order to act as a buffer between survivor and abuser. The survivor’s solicitor will advise them about the amount of warning that should be given having regard to the circumstances of the case and that will depend, largely, on the nature of the abuse that has been sustained. For example, where there is less of an immediate physical threat to the survivor’s safety and the abusive behaviour has been committed perhaps by more online means (nasty emails, offensive WhatsApps, etc) it may be more appropriate to provide advance notice of the intention of going to court. However, where there is a clear risk to someone’s safety, or the survivor is concerned that advance notice to the abuser could cause them to pressure the survivor into not going through with seeking protective orders, then it may be sensible to limit the amount of advance warning to as little as possible or, in very serious cases, to none at all.

Protective Orders: what happens if they are breached?

If someone that has perpetrated acts of domestic violence is made the subject of a Non-Molestation Order and they go on to breach that order, i.e. behave in a way that they are not supposed to, then that is a criminal offence and a contempt of court. Therefore, if a survivor of domestic abuse has a Non-Molestation Order made in their favour they should take steps to notify their local police station about the existence of the protective order so that, should a breach occur in the future, the police are on notice and can intervene more swiftly should the abuser fail to adhere to the terms of the injunction once made.

If an Occupation Order is made and a power of arrest has been attached to it, then an abuser that breaches the terms of that Occupation Order can be arrested without the need to obtain a warrant. Similarly, any survivor of domestic abuse that has an Occupation Order made in their favour should report any breaches of the protective injunction to the police so that they may proceed to arrest the perpetrator. If there is no power of arrest attached to the Occupation Order then the survivor will need to apply to the Family Court that made the Occupation Order in the first instance for the power of arrest.

Protective Orders: concluding remarks

Anyone concerned about the impact of the World Cup on the dynamics of their relationship, or anyone in general in an abusive relationship, should bear in mind the following:

• If there is an immediate risk to your safety, the safety of a child or a loved one because of an abusive relationship then 999 should be called.
• If you are concerned about a domestically abusive relationship but there is no emergency, the police are able to offer advice and support through the non-emergency number, 101.
• Survivors of domestically abusive relationships should try to familiarise themselves with whatever local and national support might be available. For example, the Metropolitan Police have published details of various support organisations at: www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/daa/domestic-abuse/support-organisations/
• There are various steps survivors can take from a civil perspective, i.e. non-criminal, via the Family Court. Those are applications for protective orders, known as injunctions, in the shape of a Non-Molestation Order and an Occupation Order.
• Depending on your financial circumstances, you might be entitled to legal aid for legal advice and representation.
• See our list of contacts and resources for victims of domestic abuse