The clubs themselves are only responsible for the payment of Policing Birmingham Premiership football inside their ground. Data obtained via the Freedom of Information laws shows that the West Midlands police spent some £1,141,769 for policing Premiership football at Aston Villa and West Bromwich Albion in the 2008/09 season but only received £875,655 from the two clubs, a shortfall of some £266,114, Birmingham City have not been included as they were playing in the Championship at the time. The shortfall is all associated with the outside of the ground policing, such as railway stations, city, town centres, pubs in close proximity to the grounds and areas where there have been previous match day problems and incidents.
Figures for the 2009/10 season, when Birmingham City were promoted to the Premiership and West Bromwich Albion demoted, showed that the costs recovered for Policing Birmingham Premiership football was estimated at £878,130 which was a slight increase of approximately 0.3% on the previous seasons figures. If the 0.3% increase was added to the cost of the 2008/09 total policing figures the total shortfall would be £267,064.
West Midlands MP Aidan Burley is of the opinion that Premier League clubs should pay the policing bill in full, with ordinary hardworking taxpayers questioning why they are expected to subsidise Premiership football clubs who are quite happy to pay their players millions of pounds a year in salaries as these extra over so called consequential costs are simply business costs incurred by the clubs whilst they themselves are making vast profits????
Given the current economical situation we all find ourselves in, surely it is time that the Premiership stood on its own two feet and covered the full cost of match day policing. In the January transfer window Premiership clubs spent a record of some £225million on the purchase of new players, the majority of which were encouraged by the offer of ridiculous salaries, with they themselves offering no actual club loyalty to the clubs they leave and those that they join, in the large majority of cases, whilst the rest of the country was looking at every means possible to cut their costs. The article Birmingham Premiership Football provides a clear picture of the income received by the Premiership associated with TV rights and sponsorships. It also identifies the sugar daddy foreign owners who are happy to plough stupid money into their clubs funds to enable them to compete for the purchase of new players.
The West Midlands Police force is currently being forced to make savings of £125million as Government funding for the UK police service is cut by 20% in real terms by 2014-15. The police charge football clubs £56.39 per hour for the operation of a police constable, £65.62 per hour for a sergeant and £66.47 for an inspector. Premiership games are normally policed by a number of PSU’s (Police Support Units) comprising 21 constables, three sergeants and one inspector making the total cost of a PSU £8,684 for an average six hour a day match attendance.
The police categorise each game on expected crowd attendance, the time of day the match kicks off and fan’s behaviour records. A game recorded as Club Stewards will require no policing, with a maximum of two PSU’s being deployed to low risk games, three to medium risk games, four to those considered high risk matches and four or more to those considered to be games of increased risk. These match day categories are fully discussed and agreed by the police with each club at the beginning of each Premiership season. The same applies to games associated with the Championship and League One and Two football teams. It is reasonable to suggest that the lower the spectator number at matches the lower the police presence.
If and when Premiership clubs do become fully responsible in meeting police match day costs it might bring the salaries paid to these so called footballers back to a sensible level with today’s footballers currently being paid annual salaries that most of us will not earn in a lifetime and so money that one can only dream about.
Perhaps it is now time for the supporters of Premiership clubs to make their true feelings know about the stupidity of the salaries players receive by simply staying away from both matches, with their excessive and stupid entrance fees and the clubs commercial shop. This would quickly make clubs realise that in the eye of the supporters enough is enough.
If clubs accepted total ownership for match day policing it would allow more money to be spent by the police on the more important policing activities such as the catching and hopefully putting away of the wrongdoers of this country?
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