FILE PHOTO: cer Football - Bundesliga - Bayern Munich v FC Augsburg - Allianz Arena, Munich, Germany - November 22, 2024 General view of the matchball before the match REUTERS/Leonhard Simon/File Photo
BERLIN (Reuters) -German soccer clubs must pay their share of increased policing costs during high-risk matches, the country's federal Constitutional Court said on Tuesday, ending a more than decade-long dispute over who should shoulder the additional financial burden of such games.
The court ruled that a 2014 law of Bremen, whereby clubs must pay their share of such increased costs, was in accordance with the constitution.
It rejected the constitutional complaint filed by the German Football League (DFL) which runs the top two professional divisions.
The dispute dates back to that law by Bremen which had ordered professional soccer clubs to contribute financially for the increased police deployment required for games that are considered high-risk and could lead to potential crowd trouble.
So far Bremen is the first federal state to introduce such payments for any for-profit major event with more than 5,000 spectators which could, based on experience, lead to violence.
The DFL said the court's decision had now provided "legal clarity".
"The DFL will work to ensure that the relevant criteria are specified and operational planning is made more transparent for those who could be called upon to pay fees for the additional provision of police forces," it said in a statement.
"Fundamentally, however, there remains a common goal: safe major events with the lowest possible number of police deployment hours."
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann, editing by Pritha Sarkar and Christian Radnedge)
