Andrew Dismore

Football clubs in London paid just 5% of policing costs for matches last season, leaving the Metropolitan Police with a bill of nearly £6.7 million. New figures, obtained by Labour London Assembly Member, Andrew Dismore AM, show that only £361,000 was recovered, the full amount allowed under the current legislation. Commenting on the figures, Mr Dismore said “enough was enough” and that it was time for the government to take action.

In the 2016/17 season, the cost of policing professional football matches in London was over £7 million pounds. The Met was able to recover just 5.1% of this, as a 2012 High Court judgement stated that clubs can only be charged for policing inside the stadiums or on their land. There is no legal right to recover costs for managing travelling supporters or policing incidents that occur outside the ground.

 

The most expensive match to police did not involve a London club. The EFL Cup Final in February between Manchester United and Southampton cost the Met over £150,000, but they were only able to recover a quarter of this. The second most expensive match was a Europa League game between Tottenham and KAA Gent. Whilst this cost less, at £123,000, the Met were only able to recover £10,000 of this cost – just 9%.

 

Overall, West Ham was the most expensive club, with over a million pounds of the Met’s budget spent on policing their matches. The club paid just £33,000 of this – 3%. Chelsea contributed £150,000 of the £726,000 spent on their games.

 

In the 2015/16 season, West Ham’s wage bill was £85 million and Chelsea’s was £224 million.

 

Labour London Assembly Member Andrew Dismore AM said:

“This is just getting ridiculous – enough is enough.

“I have been campaigning on this issue for a number of years now, and any hope I had of the clubs doing the right thing, and coughing up a tiny proportion of their millions to relieve London taxpayers of this financial burden, is long gone.

“The Mayor and the Met are continuing to lobby government to change the law to stop this farce, but as of yet the Home Secretary has failed to take action. The police have more important things to spend their budget on – which incidentally has been significantly cut under this government. London taxpayers should not have to spend another penny on subsidising some of the richest organisations in the world.”