Forum Topic

soccer violence

Having witnessed the huge police operation because QPR were playing Millwall on Tuesday night I wondered who wil be paying for all this. I trust the multi millionaires who own QPR. Certainly not the local police, councils, or public. Otherwise close their ground.

Michael Wale ● 5832d9 Comments

I do know that the clubs pay something - it must be published in the QPR annual accounts, which presumably are a public document.  So it would be easy to check out.  That's in Hammersmith and Fulham and not Ealing though!!

Dee Cook ● 5832d

I'm pretty sure the Met charges clubs for the police presence at games.What I don't know is if it's a fixed charge per game or  whether it varies according to need. It would be good if they could charge the visitors in this case. I cycling round South Africa Road on Tuesday evening and spotted the huge deployment; it didn't take long to guess who the visiors were. I happened to be in Southend a while back when they hosted Millwall and Victoria Avenue (the main road past the ground) was absolutely stiff with cops

Roy Gillett ● 5831d

I totally agree that the visiting team that was the main cause of this huge police operation should pay. It is usually Millwall, but Cardiff are another club who bring trouble with them. But the public must not contribute.

Michael Wale ● 5831d

I thought the clubs had to pay vast amounts for policing and that it actually doesn't fall on the public purse.

Sara Nathan ● 5831d

all paid for by the punters via the ticket prices.

Dee Cook ● 5831d

Not unreasonably surely - that's an incentive to self police. Anyhow tickets are such a fortune - around £40 per match for a premier league season ticket holder (she says bitterly) that the policing cost is probably a fairly small proportion of that if you have a crown of sixty odd thousand.

Sara Nathan ● 5831d

don't forget the clubs also employ (at a low wage rate) stewards, who attend the matches.

Dee Cook ● 5831d

The estimated cost of policing football which is chargeable to the 92 league clubs is between £12m and £15m, in addition to the £11.5m spent on stewarding at Football League clubs and more than £10m in the Premier League. But the police want new powers to recover up to an additional £10m "full-cost policing".The argument from clubs is that the definition as to when travelling fans become spectators and not just citizens going about there business.There is some debate about the size of the 'footprint' around each ground inside which policing is the clubs responsibility and outside of which it falls to the public purse.The shortfall is the equivalent of 2 England international's salaries. Enough said methinks...

Gary Burgess ● 5827d

One assumes Gary that with pressure on police budgets the pressure for greater financial contribution will continue. If the police are responsible for outside the ground as you state then maybe a case for "smarter policing" in deploying resources is needed. While I do not go as regularly as I used to, my own observation over many years was better control of fans who get tanked up in local pubs before heading off to the match at the nearby ground might just have a beneficial impact. I have rarely seen any fans the worse for drink being turned away at the gates across London grounds.

Joe Conneely ● 5822d