Decision of the audit offices: football clubs should pay police costs

In the dispute over the reimbursement of additional police costs for high-risk games, German football threatens hardship.

The presidents of the state and federal audit offices consider it right to charge fees for additional police costs for so-called high-risk games in football stadiums.

They made a corresponding decision at the end of their autumn conference in Berlin on Wednesday.

So far, the city-state of Bremen is the only federal state to have a corresponding fee schedule.

"We recommend that the other countries also introduce such fees," said the President of the Berlin Court of Auditors and host of the meeting, Karin Klingen, after the conference.

Klingen pointed out that the Federal Administrative Court had confirmed the legality of this regulation in March 2019.

The courts of auditors considered it useful if fees could be levied by the organizer for profit-oriented high-risk events, which experience has shown to lead to additional police expenditure, she said.

As a justification, she said that it was necessary for the countries to set priorities in income and expenditure.

"We would see this as a way to improve government revenues in a meaningful way."

Six-figure costs

The German Football League initially did not want to comment on the decision.

However, it regards the reimbursement of additional police costs in high-risk games as fundamentally unlawful.

The background to the dispute is the approach taken by the state of Bremen, which sent such fee slips for police costs in so-called high-risk games to the DFL, which they passed on to the current second division soccer club SV Werder.

Werder incurred six-figure costs for each affected game.

The state of Bremen and the DFL had argued about this issue in court.

The Federal Administrative Court had declared the Bremen procedure to be legal two years ago.

Klingen justified the fact that the presidents of the Court of Auditors did not take the decision until more than two years after the decision of the Federal Administrative Court by saying that they did not want to make a decision during the pandemic when there were significant restrictions at the football games.

“That is why it is now happening.” Klingen pointed out that soccer is the main application, but that it is basically about high-risk events that regularly result in a high level of additional police effort.