The point of police???

[Garawa]

Why do we spend large sums on police? I know this is something Scally has questioned but we can be charged tens of thousands to have 3 officers watching a match from a gantry (they cannot quickly get down from) and to have a car drive around the town. Bargain! At the Villa v West Brom game hundreds of fans streamed onto the pitch whilst every officer simply watched on from the touchlines. I bet being a derby the costing was quite significant so, if they do nothing whilst there then why do we pay what we do? The fact we have to makes it a stealth tax to offset the council tax bill. There may be times they are needed, make it pay as you go policing!!

[CadburyMan]

Seems to me that having to have a police presence at football matches is little short of the police running a "protection" racket. Stewarding/security within the ground should be responsibility of the club and beyond the curtilage of the ground the police should have responsibility.

I don't see that it is that much different to any town centre on a weekend evening where you don't see Wetherspoons etc having to pay additionally for the streets to be policed.

[Garawa]

I totally agree. If you then also went to a concert of an evening for example there would be no police present and security would be on duty instead. Only football seems to require these services with virtually no reward for doing so. If Villa get severely reprimanded after their pitch invasion could they not argue that they paid for enough police? I doubt it would have stopped it but they never even tried!

[gillsfan1066]

And if they had tried to have stopped them then someone would be suing them now for injuries caused when they were pulled to the ground by a big bad policeman,they were only having fun, just boys being boys what harm did it do??
Were getting the same problem here with collage basketball, some of those indoor stadiums hold between 20 and 33,000 and when the 60th ranked team beats the 10th ranked team fans invade the floor, drunk 19 to 24 year old boys trying to grab their "heroes" and jump up and down like morons.
Happened a few weeks ago at Kansas State when they beat local top ranked team Kansas,thousands invade the floor a Kansas player got hurt, the KS coaches wife and baby knock to the floor,all pretty ugly,and luckily some nuta with a knife wasn't in the melee stabbing people, just ask Monica Seles how much fun that is.
It's a problem, Villa should be fined BIG TIME, enough to have the chairman and his board shaking in their seats, and the video should be watched and the next home game those people who are clearly seen as rioters should be taken away and fined VERY HEAVILY, of course neither the directors or the fans will be and this will start to become a trend.