Interesting - who should pay to police football matches?

[WendyWeber]

Association of Chief Police Officers thinks the clubs should, & looking at the figures, so do I!

At the moment the clubs only have to pay for policing on their premises & "the local community" effectively pays for the rest - OK, it's in the interests of the local community to have matches policed, but the big clubs get so much money from the fans who are the ones needing policing, why shouldn't they pay?

Man Utd's bill was just under £1.5m of which they actually paid £900k, leaving £550k for the community to cover - when you think how much they buy & sell players for, that's nothing to them!

I think the big clubs at least should pay the full bill. They can well afford it - and if they can't afford they should cut the players' wages.

i think that it should stay as it stands that the immediate premises etc should be covered by the clubs and that is all.
match goers presumably all pay income tax, we all most certainly pay VAT on our tickets and all the clubs pay millions in taxes each year which go to pay for the olice services.
the fact that the surrounding community needs extra policing an admittedly negative is a knock on effect of the sporting event. but there are countless positive knock n effects economically which one could argue should be taken into account if you are going to start a running tally of profit/loss to the tax payer.
also to me it just seems a lazy attempt to get some cash back by picking on an easy target politically speaking.
should areas of high crime be forced to pay more taxes because they require greater police presence than areas of low crime?

Clubs should definitely pay.

Why stick to football though? I'm sure many other events don't pay the full whack for their policing.

The likes of Man U etc can afford it but most clubs can't.

Granted there are a few clubs that have a reputation for fans starting fights but there are many that don't. There are more fights on a Saturday night in most town centres, or problems with drugs at festivals. Should night clubs and festival organisers have to pay full whack too? Where do you draw the line?

"Why stick to football though? I'm sure many other events don't pay the full whack for their policing."

exactly how i feel about it.
as i said before i think that the cultural image of football that is portrayed (20 year old millionaires and fighting fans) make it an easy target for a scheme like this.
when the reality is hooliganism around grounds is virtually non-existant and the majority of clubs could not handle the extra costs.
and as you say, why stick to football? if you want everyone to pay their own way then fair enough,that proposal will sink like a lead balloon imho, but at least it's across the board.
singling out football just seems lazy.

Other events pay for policing.

I don't know where the line should be drawn though.

Clubs should pay.

Look at the ridiculous pay they give their footballers.

They can afford it. And none of this "where will it stop" malarky.

Pubs and nightclubs should also pay a surcharge for the police having to sweep up the remains of their clientel (sp?) at the end of the night.

clubs do pay, they pay loads of tax! and as for the ridiculous amount they pay footballers that also means they pay loads of tax, and considering footballers dont use the nhs, send their kids to private schools and pay a fair bit for their own security they probably get less from their tax money than most of us.

well from a different perspective I'm involved with a voluntary carnival, and we have to contribute to policing despite being well- just voluntary, the money we get from the carnivals goes either to the clubs fr building or to charity.

So i don't see why we should pay and big clubs shouldn't?