Bid to make football clubs pay for policing

The Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) today agreed to push forward with attempts to get football clubs to pay for policing outside their grounds.

They adopted a paper drawn up by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) – which they oversee – calling for organisers of commercial events in stadia to pay for all policing associated with their events by April 2009.

The report says the MPA should lobby central Government to enact legislation to give a legal basis for such charging and also approach London councils to use the legislative framework that exists for London to create such a legal basis.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair told a meeting of the MPA: “We are very clear that we are only interested in charging around commercial and large commercial events.

“Who is paying for the journey from the Emirates Stadium to the Tube station? The answer is the people of London are, whether they are there or not.

“And I think, as the Olympics come towards us, there will be a lot of non-commercial events, certainly, but there will also be people making a lot of money out of the Olympics and that shouldn’t be at the expense of the London taxpayer.”

The report looked at one year, from October 1, 2005, to September 30, 2006, during which time more than 1,300 events were identified as commercial.

The cost of policing the events was estimated at more than £9.2million and the Metropolitan Police recouped £3.9m (€5.4m).

The report says: “The most costly commercial events to police are football matches. Charging for the policing of football matches has been the subject of much discussion over the years and, in developing their (existing) policy, the MPA met with representatives from the clubs, the Premier League and the League.

“No firm agreement on payment for policing outside football grounds could be reached and the MPA decided that, without the legal framework, they were not in a position to force payment. As such, the current policy states that the MPS will only charge for officers deployed inside grounds.”

During the year under examination, 346 football matches were played in London and the cost of policing them was £6.6m (€9.1m).

“The MPS sought payment for 257 of these matches, but, because the policy is only to charge for those officers deployed inside the grounds, it only recouped £2.1m (€2.9m). As such, the MPS subsidised football to the tune of £4.5m (€6.2m).”

The report says that other sporting events take place across London, such as tennis, rugby and cricket matches.

“In terms of overall cost, these are very minor in comparison with football, but full cost recovery does not take place for the same reasons as in football.”

The report notes that there are other ways to ensure event organisers meet the costs of their event.

“The MPS cannot be required in law to provide policing for a commercial event held inside a stadium and the withdrawal of all policing from such an event may result in the local authority reducing the capacity outlined in the safety certificate.

“It would then be a decision for the organisers whether to reach an agreement with the MPS on levels of policing in an effort to increase the capacity allowed by their safety certificate.”