POLICE are to tear up football-ground security deals they believe are losing the taxpayer millions of pounds a year, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.
The nation's biggest force, Strathclyde, will hand over full responsibility for match-day ground safety to clubs, including Rangers and Celtic, within just 18 months.
And it aims to start charging clubs for the officers it deploys outside stadium
s as well as inside – potentially landing the game with a bill of more than £3 million a year.
Strathclyde's move is expected to be followed by forces across the country, all tired of spending far more on policing games than they get back from the sport.
It is likely to come as a severe blow for clubs already facing an uncertain financial future. Their main funder, Irish broadcaster Setanta, is on the brink of administration – though hopes of a rescue package for the sports channel are high after billionaire Len Blavatnik offered £20m for a 51 per cent stake.
Strathclyde spent nearly £4.9m policing football matches in 2007-2008, but received just £1.6m from the clubs for carrying out the work.
That left the force with a financial black hole of £3.3m, enough to pay for more than 80 new officers for a year.
Strathclyde Chief Constable Stephen House, in an official report to be published next week, said police no longer needed "to accept the onerous duty of care for overall responsibility for safety" for games.
He added: "Under the current charging regime, there is a constant, considerable undercharging of football clubs for services provided.
"With the increasing demands on police resources against an ever-tightening financial backdrop, police forces have to be more accountable in their expenditure – therefore undercharging is not sustainable in the future."
House's review of football policing will go before his force's ruling board, the newly rebranded Strathclyde Police Authority, next week for "noting".
Strathclyde takes a lead on the issue through the Association of Chief Police Officers, and House's views are likely to sway his fellow chief constables.
The convener of Strathclyde Police Authority, Paul Rooney, said yesterday: "This report raises a number of issues around efficiency and making the best use of our resources."
Clubs currently pay for policing inside their grounds, which are also stewarded. However, they make no contribution to the cost of mobilising thousands of officers outside their grounds on match days.
Top-flight clubs look certain to try and resist paying for policing outside grounds.
Iain Blair, the secretary of the Scottish Premier League, yesterday said: "Right now every pound is a prisoner. There are six SPL clubs in Strathclyde so we could be talking of bills in the hundreds of thousands for each of them and that amounts to three or four players each.
"We are quite happy with the proposals to hand over more power for security to clubs, which we understand will free up police officers for other duties. But we don't see why we should pay for a police officer standing at traffic lights 300 yards from a ground.
"Clubs already pay business rates and they already pay for policing in their grounds. We don't see why they should be charged a third time."
Strathclyde calculated that it used up nearly 64,000 "officer hours" on football policing in the 2007-2008 season, when there were five SPL clubs in the force area: Rangers, Celtic, Motherwell, Kilmarnock and St Mirren. There are now six, following the promotion of Hamilton. The force also covers most of Scotland's home games at Hampden Park and numerous lower league fixtures.
