The people who died at Hillsborough were innocent victims but I've long thought that hooliganism actually killed them. The terrible fences that prevented them from escaping, the police dismissing it as 'crowd trouble' rather than 'a crowd in trouble', the organisers' practice of treating paying customers to a sporting event like wild animals to be herded and coralled. None of these things would have been in place if there hadn't been the toxic atmosphere surrounding football at that time.
He's right to apologise if he's caused offence. But I would echo his sentiment and hope we never go back to the problems of those days.