A politician says it is “scandalous” that football clubs aren’t legally obliged to pay more towards match day policing costs.

During the last football season, which ran from August 2017 to May 2018, it cost police over £5 million to deploy officers to matches in London.

But they only received 7 per cent of these costs back from football clubs.

Now, London Assembly member for Barnet and Camden Andrew Dismore, says that money would be enough to fund 95 extra police officers in the capital.

A High Court Ruling from 2012 stipulates that football clubs should only be charged for policing inside their own football stadium and have no legal obligation to pay any policing costs to cover supporters of their team travelling to different grounds.

Mr Dismore said: “Top-flight London football clubs make huge revenues, so it is scandalous that they are not lawfully obliged to dig a lot deeper to pay for the substantial costs of matchday policing.

“With police numbers falling to their lowest in 20 years, the money that these clubs have withheld from the Met could be used to fund almost 100 desperately needed officers. However, consistent and widespread calls for urgent change have so far been met with indifference from the Home Office.”

Figures released by City Hall in June show the number of police officers per 1,000 people in London has fallen to 3.3 – a record low over the last 20 years.

Out of all the clubs in the Premier League, Tottenham saw the highest policing costs of football matches during the last football season of over £1,200,000.

Mr Dismore added: “If we are to comprehensively crack down on violent crime, it is clear that we all need to come together in our communities and play our part in supporting local police forces.

“Whilst there needs to be drastic change in the law on the issue of matchday policing costs, football clubs have a moral obligation to their community to come forward and properly pay their way to ensure that vital Met funding is not unnecessarily diverted.”