Home clubs to get bill for increased policing costs at high-risk matches, German FA says

BERLIN, Sept 11 : The German Football Association (DFB) said on Friday that it would pass on increased policing costs for high-risk matches to home clubs, adding that it still opposed charging fees for policing.

The decision comes more than a year after the country's Federal Constitutional Court ruled that German Bundesliga clubs were liable to pay the costs for making sure high-risk matches were safe for fans.

The DFB said that should it be billed for additional police costs, it would pass on the costs to the home clubs. 

"Should the DFB receive fee notices for police costs, we will pass those costs on to the respective clubs," DFB President Bernd Neuendorf said in a statement. "Regardless of this, we continue to believe that charging fees for police costs is the wrong approach."

"The shared goal of policymakers, the police, associations, and clubs must be to improve the local security situation and reduce the number of police hours deployed at football matches. Neither objective is achieved through a fee-based system. We therefore continue to favour a cooperative approach in our collaboration with policymakers and the police," he said.

The 2025 decision was triggered by a complaint filed by the German Football League that runs the top two divisions, over a local law in Bremen, whereby clubs must pay their share of such increased costs.

The court ruled in 2025 that the 2014 law of Bremen was in accordance with the constitution.