Arrests for football-related violence are on the increase but the focus of the trouble has shifted from stadiums to other areas and the hooligans are more violent and better organised, using technology such as mobile phones and the internet.
"I think there's been an increase in the amount of violence been used in the last couple of years," NCIS spokesman Mark Steels says.
"The problem of football hooliganism is moving well away from stadiums and sometimes it is well after football matches and that provides us with problems.
"We have a world-renowned football intelligence section and we've found that very important and it will be increasingly important.
"It is certainly nothing like those figures people talk about in the so-called dark days of the '70s when hundreds of people were fighting. They've become much more sophisticated and more like organised crime groups.”
Under last year's Football (Disorder) Act banning orders can be handed down for between two and ten years, forcing convicted hooligans to surrender their passports for specific periods.
The legislation is designed to prevent known trouble-makers travelling abroad to follow football and is backed up by the threat of a six-month jail sentence or a £5,000 ($7,105, B7,907) fine if it is disobeyed.
Football hooliganism in the UK is on the increase as offenders become more sophisticated and "more like organised crime groups", according to a National Criminal Intelligence Service report will show today.
