Organisers pay policing cost

Press, 6 March 1984, Page 23

Organisers pay policing cost

From

DIANA DEKKER

in London The cost of policing the grounds at big British outdoor events is borne by the organisers of the events, such as football matches and pop music concerts. The number of police necessary is worked out by th elocal police in association with the organisers, said a spokesman for the British Home Office Police Division.

Policing areas outside the grounds is entirely the responsibility of the police and paid for by the taxpayer (50 per cent from the Government and 50 per cent from the local government). Inside, organiser-hired policemen are often supple-

mented by security men, also hired by the organisers of the event, who generally deal with ticket and “shepherding” problems. The police brought in to keep order in the grounds are off-duty policemen who must be paid at bvertime rates.

The ratio of police to public varies according to the event and area.

When Liverpool and Everton play soccer against each other there are generally about 50 to 60 policemen hired to look after the crowd inside the ground. “We work with , a minimum expected crowd of 35,000,” said a spokesman for the Mersyside police. “Generally there is a crowd of about 40,000. When

these teams are playing lesser teams we scale it down. “Policemen doing football duty are off-duty and volunteer for overtime duty. They are not drawn out of the normal strength of the county force.” They are paid at overtime rates by the club — a minimum of four hours plus travelling time. They will get time-and-a-half or double time on holidays like Easter Monday. The cost of paying for policing in the grounds is high. Charlton United, reported to be close to receivership, is £1 million in debt and a police spokesman said a fair proportion of this had come from builtup debts for policing. Brit-

ish newspapers reported that the second division club, which once played to crowds of 70,060, had 48 hours for someone to pull it out of its financial plight. When the big ' Reading blues and jazz festival takes place each year in the Thames Valley police area, the police are generally absent from the grounds. “We just police the surrounding streets,” a Thames Valley spokesman said. “This policing varies from festival to festival. We usually try to have as many policemen there as possible. “If yoli have the Bay City Rollers the crowd tends to go a little beserk. When Barry Manilow sings you get an audience of predominantly middle-aged women who don’t cause so much

trouble.”

He said the organisers of the Reading concert usually supplied their own security officers who were, like any ordinary citizens, able to effect an arrest if there was a breach of the peace.

British policing of big sports events sometimes extends well away from home territory. Nearly 40 British Transport police were on duty between Dunkirk and England when the fans at Thursday’s “friendly” France-England international soccer match returned home on the ferry.

The fans had not fared well at the hands of the French police. Fifteen of them were in hospital, many of them having been beaten up by baton-wielding police.