Four-year football ban for yob who wore vile Hillsborough shirt
White, 33, of Stockton, Warks, smiled and chuckled as he was banned from all regulated games in the UK and ordered to pay £1,485 in fines and costs.
A yob chuckled in the dock as he was banned from football for four years over his shirt’s offensive reference to the Hillsborough disaster.
James White admitted displaying threatening or abusive writing likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress at Wembley Stadium during the FA Cup Final on June 3.
He wore a Manchester United top marked 97 with the words “Not Enough”.
The same number of Liverpool FC fans died due to the April 1989 stadium crush in Sheffield.
White, 33, of Stockton, Warks, smiled and chuckled as he was banned from all regulated games in the UK and ordered to pay £1,485 in fines and costs.
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District judge Mark Jabbitt said at Willesden Magistrates’ Court, North West London: “It is hard to imagine a more...offensive reference to the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.” He added that the impact of White’s “abhorrent” actions was “profound and distressing”.
White had told police who arrested him at Wembley: “You haven’t even asked me what the T-shirt means.
“My grandad died aged 97 and didn’t have enough kids.”
Prosecutors had said that White had “many” previous convictions, most recently in 2021, but none related to football. Police were emailed on the day by people who saw a photo of the shirt and were “disgusted”.
Diane Lynn, vice-chair of the Hillsborough Survivors Support Alliance, said it was “very personal” for people who were at the ground, and survivors had suffered “guilt”.
She added: “How dare he make us feel like this?”
The defence said White accepts he “hurt people very deeply”. An inquest in 2016 ruled that the victims were unlawfully killed.
