The cost of football policing
The government is concerned that the cost to tax payers for policing football matches is too high and is exploring ways to address this.
The general costs of policing football matches are met by the local police force. However, under section 25 of the Police Act 1996, police forces can charge football clubs for policing that occurs on land owned (or leased) by the football club under special police service arrangements.
The actual cost incurred will be different for each match depending on the size of the land policed, the risk of disorder associated with individual football events and the amount of police involvement requested.
The then Policing Minister, Nick Hurd, set out further details in a Westminster Hall debate in June 2019:
[…] the police can charge for special police services under section 25 of the Police Act 1996. Legislation and case law […] means that the police can claim back only those preventive policing costs that were incurred on land owned by football clubs, which in practice normally means inside the grounds, and they must be asked to do such policing by the club.
In 2017, the courts clarified the limits of police cost recovery for football policing.
The High Court determined that Suffolk Constabulary could recover costs incurred from policing public roads adjoining the club’s Portman Road stadium on matchdays in Ipswich Town Football Club Company Ltd v Chief Constable of Suffolk Constabulary [2017] EWHC 375 (PDF).
However, the Court of Appeal upheld Ipswich Town’s appeal against the judgment in Ipswich Town Football Club Company Ltd v Chief Constable of Suffolk Constabulary [2017] EWCA Civ 1484 (PDF). The court found that services provided immediately outside the stadium on public land were part of normal policing duties and not special police services for which the club could be charged.
This decision clarified that the police could only recover costs incurred on land owned (or leased) by football clubs and not on public land nearby.
Lady Justice Gloster, one of the judges who presided over the case :
It is for parliament to change the law, if it considers it appropriate to make football clubs pay for police attendance at football matches on the highway, outside the stadium or other privately owned land.
The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) has published Policing Football Operational Advice (PDF) which provides a framework for those planning, policing and commanding football events. Page 18 of the guidance provides advice on signing agreements with football clubs about services being charged for:
It is essential that forces, before supplying services, have signed agreements with clubs explicitly documenting the services being charged for, the length of time deployments are to be charged for and the arrangements for foreseeable contingencies, such as delayed kick off or extra time.
Further advice for police forces (and background information) can also be found in the NPCC’s National Policing Guidlines on Charging for Police Services (PDF).
The cost of policing football matchesThere is no official data on the cost of policing football matches.
In July 2025, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, stated that it costs the police £70m a year to police football matches across the UK.
According to figures provided by the United Kingdom Football Policing Unit (UKFPU), the total cost for police services for football in England and Wales for the 2023-24 season was £71.69m. The UKFPU states that football clubs paid £14.87m towards the costs, with taxpayers paying the remaining £56.82m.
In 2019, the football policing lead for the NPCC, Chief Constable Mark Roberts, stated that the cost of policing football matches in England and Wales was £48m a year and that the police were only able to claim back £5.5m from football clubs.
Unofficial estimates compiled through Freedom of Information requests to police forces also exist. For example, in 2022, Dr Richard Hester, a lecturer at the University of Gloucester, published The true cost of policing football in England & Wales: Freedom of Information data from 2015-2019 (PDF). The research included a breakdown by police force on the amount spent on football policing vs the amount paid back by football clubs. Dr Hester’s research is based on an incomplete dataset as not all police forces provided data.
Parliamentary activity Home Affairs CommitteeIn 2009, the Home Affairs Committee published a report on The Cost of Policing Football Matches.
The report recommended that football clubs should “pay the full cost of policing which can be attributed to them” and that the police should “review their arrangements for policing matches and the process by which these arrangements are decided.”
The report also stated that the Home Office should “consider providing legal clarification on the extent to which commercial events are responsible for policing beyond their footprint, if necessary through legislation.”
Westminster Hall debateThere was a Westminster Hall debate on the cost of policing football in June 2019.
The then Member of Parliament for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, Gill Furniss (Lab) urged the government to “share the costs more reasonably between the large clubs and our police forces” whilst stating that the government should be mindful that “full cost recovery could be damaging for many local league clubs.”
Ms Furniss suggested that one way of securing full cost recovery would be by placing a levy on football TV rights, stating that “a 1% levy could recover enough money to cover a substantial portion of football policing costs and relieve clubs and the police of expensive and time-consuming arguments about the extent of payments.”
The then Member of Parliament for Waveney, Peter Aldous (Con), urged the government to legislate to reinstate the framework which operated before the 2017 Court of Appeal ruling which enabled the police to recover the cost for policing areas immediately outside football stadiums.
In response, the then Policing Minister, Nick Hurd, stated that he would meet with the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Mims Davies to discuss “how we can structure a better, fairer partnership between police and football and, in doing so, reduce the demand on police resources.” Mr Hurd stated that he was “open-minded about how we do that, including about looking at all current frameworks and arrangements.” No update on the outcome of Mr Hurd’s meeting with Ms Davies was published.
Potential for reformIn March 2025, The Times reported that the government was “looking to launch a formal consultation process” on the cost of policing football matches.
In the same article, the football policing lead for the NPCC, Chief Constable Mark Roberts stated that plans for a consultation were moving at a “glacial pace”. He said that he was pushing for legislation that would require professional football clubs, rather than the taxpayer, to cover the cost of policing football matches:
As things stand, the police are subsidising an incredibly wealthy and successful industry. The clubs are playing by the rules, of course, but the rules are weighted too much in their favour with the bulk of the money for meeting policing costs coming from the public purse.
It surely can’t be right that our elite football clubs can spend close to £400million in a single transfer window and yet only pay a fraction of the costs involved to keep their venues safe.
Chief Constable Roberts has also stated that football clubs covering the entire cost of football policing would “free up funds for another 1,200 officers.”
In March 2025, the then Policing Minister, Dame Diana Johnson, stated that "we are considering options for how to manage this [football policing] in a fair and proportionate way going forward."
In April 2025, major sporting organisations including the Football Association, Rugby Football Union, English Cricket Board, Jockey Club and London Marathon published a joint letter stating that they understood that new proposals were being put forward by the Home Office to “create new legislation with the intent of dramatically increasing the charges police forces can exact against those who stage major events in the UK.”
They stated that whilst proposals had not yet been shared with them, they understood that the changes would “alter the long-standing, well-established law on what ‘Special Police Services’ (or SPS) police forces can charge for under section 25 of the Police Act 1995.”
In July 2025, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, stated that there should be a "polluter pays approach" to football policing, stating:
If you’re running a profit making event that because of the nature of it, requires security, requires policing to support your security because of the criminality that is going to be experienced, why isn’t the organiser paying for that, rather than local communities who lose their resources to go to football matches?
In response to a WPQ in October 2025, the Policing Minister, Sarah Jones, confirmed that the government was “concerned that the cost of policing football matches that is currently falling to the public purse is too high” and that the government “is exploring ways to address this”:
Section 25 of the Police Act 1996 allows the police to recover costs for Special Police Services. This includes the policing of events, including football matches.
However, the proportion of costs recoverable is currently constrained by case law. As a result, each year police forces in England and Wales incur costs in the tens of millions of pounds from policing commercial events like football.
The Home Office is concerned that the cost of policing football matches that is currently falling to the public purse is too high and is exploring ways to address this. This is an important issue that requires careful consideration in order to ensure a balance between the costs to the public purse and the wider cultural and economic value of these events.
At the time of writing the government has not brought forward any legislative proposals to change how police forces can charge football clubs.
Further readingClifford Stott, Geoff Pearson and Owen West, “Enabling an Evidence Based Approach to Policing Football in the UK”, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, Volume 14, Issue 4, 8 January 2019
The National Police Chiefs' Council, “Policing Football Operational Advice” (PDF), 2022
Dr Richard Hester, “They stand there looking really bored and pissed off: analysing efficient police resourcing at football matches in England and Wales”, Policing and Society, Volume 34, Issue 9, 23 May 2024