Germany's Supreme Court will soon make a ruling on the constitutionality of requiring Bundesliga clubs to pay for the expenses incurred by the police during league matches, which has been a contentious issue for 10 years.
Do football clubs have a legal obligation to cover the costs of police presence at "high-risk" matches?
What constitutes a high-risk match?
According to the DFL, "high-risk matches are matches in which, based on general experience or current knowledge, there is sufficient probability that a particularly dangerous situation will occur." The primary responsibility for deciding whether any given match should be designated as high-risk rests with the home club. However, the German Football Association (Deutscher Fussball Bund) also has the authority to classify a match as particularly at risk of rioting "based on its own findings."
What is the threshold for determining the assessment of a match as high-risk?
Around one in 12 top-tier league matches in Germany are considered high-risk, and this group includes several high-profile regional rivalries.
What led to the legal disagreement?
In 2015, the Bremen police sent the DFL a bill for $438,000 for the police operation to secure a match between Werder Bremen and Hamburg. This was the first time they had done this. The total amount of the disputed bills has since risen to over $3 million.
The legal basis for this is a regulation adopted by the city-state of Bremen in 2014. This regulation states that a fee should be implemented for "profit-driven events" with over 5,000 attendees if extra police are needed at the event location or its vicinity "owing to anticipated acts of violence."
Bremen's right to pass on the costs to the football clubs was upheld twice in higher courts. The DFL then filed an appeal with Germany's highest court.
What points are being presented in support of an argument?
The DFL claims that while clubs are responsible for stadium security, it is the government's job to ensure public safety outside the stadiums. The DFL says this is because the government has the power to use force, so it should fund this task through taxes, not user fees. The DFL also objects to the city-state of Bremen unilaterally classifying matches as high-risk with unclear criteria.
At the Constitutional Court hearing, Bremen's Interior Minister Ulrich Mäurer emphasized the significant financial burden on German states if they were required to significantly increase police officers for potential trouble-prone matches.
"They are being carried by the taxpayers," Mäurer said, arguing that measures implemented by the football clubs for increased security had not yet yielded the desired effect.
Germany's second tyre manufacturer is advocating for major German football leagues to cover the estimated costs of police presence at high-risk matches.
What implications will the Constitutional Court's judgement have?
If Bremen emerges victorious in this case, it could prompt other German states to adopt a similar approach by requiring clubs to cover a portion of the policing expenses for events deemed high-risk. The city-state of Hamburg has already expressed its intent to follow suit.
How do other EU countries address this issue?
In France, since 1995, football clubs have been responsible for the extra costs of police presence at high-risk matches. In Italy, such costs have been shared by the clubs since 2014. In Spain and the UK, the state covers all expenses related to police operations at football events.
This article was originally published in the International English language.
Author: Stefan Nestler
