There has been a strong reaction to a proposal by the Association of Chief Police Officers that football should pay all the costs of policing games with some commentators suggesting that the plan is based on envy and class hatred. More likely cash strapped police forces see rich Premiership clubs as a potential revenue stream. But any change in the law would hit all clubs including cash strapped ones fighting for survival. Clubs currently only have to pay back the costs incurred inside their ground or on their property with the rest coming from police budgets. Assistant Chief Constable Stephen Thomas said local communities were in effect subsidising the clubs. Freedom of information requests from Radio 5 to the police showed that it cost £7.5m to police 13 Premiership clubs with the teams paying £4.3m and £3.2m coming from police budgets. The amount paid by clubs varied with Chelsea paying less than half the cost of policing their games while Arsenal paid over two-thirds. Manchester United were the most expensive club to police with Greater Manchester police spending £543,442 from their budget to patrol the games last season while the club paid £904,059.
Acpo admitted that calculating the exact cost of policing football matches is difficult. Is an officer who was on patrol anway and intercepts a hooligan a general policing cost, or should the club contribute? And as the Premiership pointed out clubs already contribute £700m a year to the Treasury through taxes, quite apart from the taxes paid by individual fans.
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