Should football clubs pay more for police protection?

Question

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7553875.stm

'Football clubs should pay all the costs of policing games, says the Association of Chief Police Officers.

Clubs currently have to pay back only the costs incurred inside their ground or on their property, with the rest coming from police budgets'

Answer 1

Of course they should. In an ideal world, they wouldn't be there anyway, so if their services are needed every week, why should we pay for it when the football clubs are earning billions? I thought that is what they paid stewards for, so why shouldn't they pay for police/ambulance time?

Of course it is easy for me to say that when the gate of your team rarely hits 1000, but still, it's not fair for other people to pay for the rich teams policing.

Answer 2

Yes I think they should. Why should the tax payer have to pay the costs

Answer 3

The football clubs make millions (if not billions of pounds in the case of the top 3 Premier league clubs) of pounds per year and reap the financial benefits of match days (season and daily ticket sales, food, souvenir sales, concessions and sponsorship). At a time when public funding is tight, should they be expecting the taxpayer to be subsidising police attendance on their match days? Should the local  police force have to cut back on budgets for everyday policing to pay for officers and vehicles to attend football matches? I think not.

The football clubs should have to pay for all police attendance inside and outside the grounds resulting from their football match. The police clearly have to put officers outside the ground as well as inside. We've all heard of or seen on TV 'punch ups' and traffic chaos outside the football ground on match days which the police and other emergency services have to deal with.

Answer 4

Half the cops are just there to watch the match same as me and you

We should Bill the Association of Chief Police Officers for their ticket money. Let the Clubs pay for private security inside the grounds and watch the police scream like stuck pigs cos they cannot get free entry

Answer 5

Officers don't get to choose if they police a match.

Premiership footballers are paid disgusting amounts of money some of that money can go towards policing outside the ground.

Police have to get the fans in & out of the ground.Then break up the fights before & after.

No doubt some gormless fans will argue that they have a god given right to get to & from the match as well as getiing legless & beating others to a pulp.

Smaller clubs should be assited by the FA

Answer 6

Yes!

Answer 7

nah

FREE DMX!

Answer 8

Of course they should, they are happy enough to take the ticket money so they should pay for everything the match that they arranged causes.

Answer 9

This would put smaller clubs completely bankrupt.  Already Gretna FC in Scotland is no more and Bournemouth has a 30 point penalty for being skint. The only clubs that would be able to afford it would be the Manchester Uniteds and the Chelseas.

Answer 10

They should pay the whole cost of policing games. It's not just the clubs that need the protection, it's the innocent bystanders that need the protection from the behaviour of the few drunken yobs that think the game is not on the field but in the adjacent streets.

Don't use the excuse that some clubs can't afford police protection, that lets them all off the hook. perhaps the richer clubs should pay a levy so that all clubs can afford police protection. After all they pay obscene amounts to some of their players. What happens in other countries regarding policing of games.

Answer 11

Obviously the policing of football games has significant implications on finances and currently clubs pay only for the policing inside the ground. I would suggest that the serious policing of footbll prominants happens outside the ground. Tax payers are therefore paying for the policing of football matches.

Certainly in the Premiership where players are earning in a week what most of us earn in 3-4 years, then I would suggest that more is done to ease the costs for the taxpayer. Likewise the FA also earn a fortune from the sport.

So in answer to your question I think more should be done.