Chief says police ‘can’t continue to subsidise’ matchday security
Police costs don’t tell full story
A YORKSHIRE police chief has called for a “rethink” about who bears the costs of policing football matches as new figures reveal the strain on the public purse.
Deputy Chief Constable Mark Roberts, of South Yorkshire Police, said his force “can’t continue to subsidise clubs” by meeting so much of the cost of matchday policing.
The cost of policing football matches across Yorkshire was £2.35m for the first half of the 2017/18 season, figures obtained by the BBC Shared Data Unit reveal.
While clubs met more than half of this cost, forces still faced a £1m shortfall.
Under the law, clubs only have to pay for matchday policing which takes place on their land, meaning forces which cover one or more major grounds have to meet the rest of the cost. South Yorkshire Police funded £573,567 of the cost of policing Sheffield Wednesday, Sheffield United, Barnsley, Doncaster Rovers and Rotherham United matches for the first half of the season, the figures show.
Mr Roberts, who is the national lead for football policing, said: “I believe there needs to be a rethink about the funding of policing football matches, to reach a fairer balance between what police are able to recoup from a multi-billion-pound football industry. Currently, clubs are paying what they are legally obliged to pay but this is, in my opinion, unfairly weighted. We can currently only recoup the costs of officers who are deployed within the club’s grounds, but the policing operation is significantly wider than that.
“Over the past year, policing football has cost South Yorkshire the equivalent of 27 full-time police officers, which would make a significant difference to our local communities. We can’t continue to subsidise clubs in this way, so without a change in the legislation we will need to work with the football industry to reduce the risks and in turn, the costs to police forces.”
His comments were echoed by Mark Burns-Williamson, police and crime commissioner for West Yorkshire, who said: “Whilst just over half of the cost of this policing has been recouped from the clubs this year, it does put an extra burden on resources at a time when Government cuts continue to take their toll.”
YORKSHIRE’S FOOTBALL clubs bring much to our region – both in economic benefits from the jobs and local businesses they support and the more intangible but arguably even more important sense of community they offer to their loyal supporters; the families, friends and neighbours who share the highs and lows of backing their local team together.
However, new figures show they can also come at a cost, with more than £2.3m being spent on policing games in West and South Yorkshire in the first half of last season alone.
While clubs paid half of that total figure, for some matches their contribution was much smaller. The most expensive Championship match to police, the Sheffield derby, cost South Yorkshire Police £203,000, with the home side Sheffield Wednesday invoiced for only £41,000.
With police budgets increasingly stretched and fan behaviour generally much improved from the dark days of hooliganism in the 1970s and 1980s, the Football Supporters’ Federation is now questioning whether a “riskaverse” approach to policing matches is leading to more officers than is necessary being sent to some games.
However, match commanders are in an invidious position; the sad reality is disorder still can and does occur at football matches attended by tens of thousands of supporters and there needs to be sufficient officers on hand to deal with such incidents. Supporters have a responsibility that their own behaviour at matches minimises the need for police action and ensures the benefits of the beautiful game are not lost.