Police union wants football clubs, festivals to pay for their own security

Additional police deployment at events like football matches and festivals must be paid for by the organisers. This is the plea made by the police union ACP. These additional costs are now being paid by the taxpayer and “not only unfair, but also unsustainable,” said the union.

"While event organizers and sports associations are making record profits, taxpayers are footing the bill, and police officers are left with a completely skewed work-life balance." That is why, according to the ACP, it is "time to turn the tables: whoever uses, pays."

The union sees a number of advantages if the additional costs of police deployment are recovered. It would force organisers to use extra security and to improve the organization of their events.

The money saved can also be reinvested, immediately, so that the workload of the police decreases and police officers return to the neighborhoods and “areas where they are really needed,” said the ACP chairman Ramon Meijerink.

He cannot name exact fees that have been spent on additional police deployment but it is certainly “a few million. Just using the water cannon costs tens of thousands of euros a day.”

The Dutch football association, the KNVB, has criticized this plan, saying that the police do not have a money problem, it has a capacity problem. They also pointed out that a lot of money has been invested into making football matches safer.

The clubs are responsible for the safety inside the stadium. The clubs do not have any say in what happens outside the stadium as that is public order which is the governments responsibility.

“The number of incidents in stadiums and the police hours in professional football are decreasing, so we are on the right track. The KNVB wants to work with the police, municipalities, and minister to look into possibilities of reducing police deployment,” said the football association. “We do not want financial motives to decide the amount of police deployment. The police need to be able to decide their deployment independently and based on the amount of risk.”