Policing Football Matches

“This Assembly puts on record its dismay at the cost to Londoners of policing top flight football matches in the capital. In the 2015/16 season alone, the net cost of officers deployed to football club related operations across London was over £5 million – this would equate to 93 constables on the average salary.

In 2012, the High Court ruled that clubs can only be charged for policing inside the stadiums or on their land. There is no legal right for the Met to recover costs for managing travelling supporters or policing incidents that occur outside the ground.

At a time of increasing pressure on the Capital’s policing budgets it is unacceptable the Metropolitan Police Service should pay for the cost of policing the matches of football clubs who can afford to pay their players hundreds of thousands of pounds a week.   

This Assembly calls on the Mayor to lobby the Government for changes to the law that would enable the Metropolitan Police Service to recover costs for policing operations outside of the stadium. In the meantime the Mayor should write to the capital's professional football clubs and invite them to do the decent thing by agreeing on a voluntary basis to meet the full reasonable costs incurred by the Met of policing their commercial activities, including football matches.”