I used to like him an all. And having them escort fans over 100 miles or stood around during the game and along the walkway is cost effective how, exactly? Andy, have a look at your piss poor outdated techniques. We're a crowd, not a riot. Taxpayer cost of policing football is 'substantial' England's most senior football policing officer has said he believes clubs should be paying millions more towards the cost of staging games. Andy Holt, the lead on football for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), told the Today programme's James Naughtie that the taxpayer picks up a "substantial proportion" of the cost of policing football matches. He was speaking after Acpo-commissioned research found a significant rise in crime and disorder away from stadiums on match days. Dr Geoff Pearson, expert in football crowd disorder at the University of Liverpool, said the findings were not surprising given the sheer number of people that travel to football matches. "The fans that are travelling to games are putting money into the local economy," he pointed out, but welcomed looking at policing, not just at football matches but also at other sporting and music events. Andy Holt said that the wider public will look at some of the costs around football and "scratch their heads in wonder" given the high wages of football players and managers.
that's because all the sensible, law abiding folk are at the match in the stadium being watched by an excessive police presence. meanwhile the local riff raff knowing that the plod will be at the match take advantage and run riot. I would have thought it was obvious.
I would have thought at the same time that if you have a load of extra coppers out and about at those times you're much more likely to find some of them catch criminals compared to when they're sat in the station filling in all the paperwork. Maybe if they were out walking the streets in the town centre at other times they'd also find they had more arrests for drunk and disorderly and other similar offences.
