Taxpayers are shouldering a £70m bill each season to police football matches — a burden that “simply cannot continue”, according to the UK’s most senior football policing officer.
Chief Constable Mark Roberts, the UK’s football policing lead, has urged clubs to contribute more to the cost of matchday policing, particularly for incidents that occur outside stadiums. Under the current system, multi-billion-pound clubs are not responsible for policing expenses beyond their grounds.
“Taxpayers pay £70m for football policing annually; chief constable urges clubs to pay more as incidents hit record high.”
“Football-related crime doesn’t simply stop when fans exit the stadium, but under the current system multi-billion-pound football clubs do not have to pay a penny towards the policing outside their grounds,” Roberts said. “This means that taxpayers are left footing the £70m bill each season, which simply cannot continue.”
His comments come as Home Office statistics released on Thursday showed that incidents were reported at 1,644 matches last season in England and Wales — the highest figure since the UK Football Policing Unit began collecting data in 2017-18. Of those, 159 were classed as “high severity”, up sharply from 106 the previous season.
However, Geoff Pearson, a professor of law at the University of Manchester and a leading researcher in crowd behaviour, said he was not alarmed by the figures. He pointed out that reported incidents are different from arrests and other police actions, which fell to 1,963 last season — a drop of 40 on the previous campaign and down from 2,198 in 2021-22 when fans returned after the pandemic.
Pearson suggested the increase in reported incidents could be due to improved recording systems and devices. He highlighted that arrests for violent disorder fell by 3%, calling it an indicator of good policing. “Football policing in this country is the envy of much of the world,” he said.
“I’m not alarmed by the statistic in the slightest. If there had been a 50% increase in high severity incidents, I would expect violent disorder to have gone up, not down,” Pearson added. He credited the British police for improving practices after the pandemic and introducing safe standing, adding: “These statistics point to the reward of them doing that.”
The debate over who pays for football-related policing is now likely to intensify, with the football policing lead arguing that the current model “doesn’t work” and clubs facing mounting pressure to help cover the £70m annual cost.