Policing matches costs us more than £30m a season
Policing football matches in England last season cost taxpayers more than £30m, as i reveals for the first time the true burden on the public purse of keeping people safe at stadiums.
The Premier League, which agreed a new £6.7bn television rights deal in December, accounted for half of the total, with forces incurring costs of at least £15.3m for policing top-flight matches, figures obtained under multiple Freedom of Information requests show. Pressure has been growing on clubs to pay the significant policing bill football generates. During what has been described as a police funding crisis, Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley and former home secretary Priti Patel have called for clubs to contribute more.
Such is the concern, i can reveal that last year the UK Football Policing Unit sent a spreadsheet to all forces in the country asking them to provide the cost of working at games in the 2019-20 and 2022-23 seasons, explaining the exercise was “to establish the estimated total national cost of football policing in order to raise awareness of the significant cost and resource impact of non-chargeable policing activity”.
Following i’s FOI request to see the figures, the National Police Chiefs’ Council conducted a thorough consultation process with forces. In its response, the NPCC stated it “wishes to stress that some issues of data accuracy have been raised” and that the figures should be considered as estimates.
A limited number of forces indicated that some figures provided were projections or estimates, while some data from forces were missing or not broken down for individual clubs. The biggest burden on taxpayers came from the Big Six – considered the wealthiest clubs in the country – and teams based in London.
Games at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium cost £2.9m to police, Arsenal fixtures at the Emirates Stadium cost £1.8m and Merseyside
police spent £1.6m working on Liverpool matches at Anfield.
Figures for other clubs included Manchester United (£1.5m), Chelsea (£1.4m), West Ham (£1.5m) and Manchester City (£900,000).
Meanwhile, Premier League clubs spent a record £2.36bn on transfers in the summer 2023 window, according to financial firm Deloitte.
More detailed Metropolitan Police data obtained by i shows that Tottenham games required significantly higher levels of policing than any club in the country and Champions League fixtures were particularly resource-intensive.
When Spurs hosted Eintracht Frankfurt in October 2022, 604 officers were required, costing £300,000. More than 500 officers were present for games against Arsenal, Portsmouth, West Ham and Chelsea, costing more than £1m in total.
Arsenal’s north London derby home game against Tottenham last season required 350 officers at a cost of £180,000.
Almost £40,000 was spent policing the victory parade after West Ham won the Uefa Conference League in May 2023, when thousands of fans filled the streets.
The total cost to taxpayers of policing the Premier League last season sent to i did not include Newcastle United and Leicester City. Northumbria Police did not provide figures and Leicestershire Police sent costs for 2022-23, totalling £599,000.
Premier League sources stress that clubs generate significant funds towards the public purse. According to the Premier League’s last annual report, it was £4.2bn in 2021-22.
“The Premier League and clubs work closely with police forces at a national and local level to help ensure the appropriate level of support is in place to keep match-goers and local communities safe,” a Premier League spokesperson told i.
“Working with the FA and the EFL, new and tougher measures have been introduced in recent seasons, as part of an all-football response, to challenge and take action against unacceptable fan behaviour.”
In the English Football League it cost forces £10.6m to police matches involving Championship clubs, £3.8m in League One and £2.2m in League Two.
An EFL spokesperson told i: “The cost of policing football is covered by rules relating to Special Police Services and controlled by statute and case law which sees clubs responsible for the costs of police deployments on land owned or controlled by the club on a match day.”
Two police forces have failed in attempts to force clubs to pay for their services. Ipswich Town sued Suffolk Police for charging the club for policing streets outside Portman Road. After initially losing the case, in 2016 the High Court ruled the club were not responsible. West Yorkshire Police was also ordered to repay Leeds United about £1m.
The EFL spokesperson added: “Clubs have worked closely with local forces to reduce police presences at fixtures and it is incumbent on the police to ensure that appropriate levels of policing are deployed in line with the level of risk.”
On match days, any disorder inside venues is the responsibility of stewards – paid for by clubs – with the occasional assistance of police officers, when required, which is charged to clubs. Teams are usually liable to pay for maintaining order immediately outside – the stadium “footprint” – but the remainder is paid by local forces.
Police forces were able to bill Premier League clubs for £6.2m in 202223 – less than a third of the total cost. In the Championship, forces charged clubs £3.4m, in League One £1.3m and in League Two £722,000 – less than a quarter of the total.
For higher-profile matches, significant numbers of officers are required to maintain order, riot vans with specially trained offers are usually present and police on horseback patrol the streets around stadiums.
i revealed in January that the Premier League had agreed to pay police a one-off unconditional gift, thought to be £5m, to thank them for the role they play in keeping fans safe. It will be distributed to forces with one or more clubs in their remit.
A shift in kick-off times for highprofile fixtures has been a strain on police. Earlier starts are thought to cut time for fans to drink alcohol.