POLICE are threatening to blow the whistle on live football in South Yorkshire - after warning professional clubs they may stop covering matches unless they pay the force more.
Bosses at South Yorkshire Police no longer want to spend millions of pounds of taxpayers' money policing games and are asking clubs to reimburse their costs.
Last year the force spent £2.1 million policing matches, dealing with brawls between rival fans and escorting travelling supporters to and from grounds.
This year, through Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster agreeing to pay for officers used in and immediately outside their stadiums, the force is expecting to re-coup £1.1 million.
But that leaves a £1 million shortfall based on last year's costs.
Assistant Chief Constable Andy Holt said the force has secured an extra £350,000 this year after a new ruling gave police the right to charge clubs for bobbies working directly outside grounds. But he said it is still not enough.
"Unfortunately we still can't charge for escorting travelling fans, monitoring the behaviour of people leaving pubs, and dealing with disturbances before and after games if they are away from the grounds.
"Football is unique because of the violence and disorder associated with it compared to other events, so policing has to be taken seriously.
"Every game is risk-assessed and policed accordingly with an agreed amount of officers, but not everyone agrees with this use of taxpayers' money and would rather it was spent differently.
"Because of our policing, the use of CCTV, better stewarding, better stadia and crowd segregation, if fans are going to engage in disorder they tend to do it away from the grounds - and that is our frustration because the costs of dealing with those issues are borne by us.
"I would like to see a higher proportion of costs borne by the clubs and, if they disagree, we have the option of not policing games.
"The effect of that is safety certificates would not be granted, so games would have to be played behind closed doors."
He added: "We would not take that decision lightly - but it is an option. We can't spend taxpayers' money subsidising a commercial enterprise."
Playing home games without fans watching would threaten the future of clubs, with gate receipts crucial to their profitability.
Sheffield United's safety officer Steve Hicks - a former police officer - said the situation would never reach that stage, but urged police chiefs to treat football clubs fairly.
"Some clubs can't afford to pay any more but would have to if the police threatened to pull out, but in doing that the force could be instrumental in putting them out of business," he said.
"We have to pay £31,000 for United's game against Wednesday this year but other entertainment venues don't pay a penny.
"Sheffield has a retail crime unit where officers patrol shops looking for shoplifters -do the shops pay for that? No. Isn't that supporting commercial enterprise?
"We pay an inflated rate for police officers for match days and pay them for six hours even though they are not here for that long, so football does contribute a vast amount of money towards policing.
"Football does need police officers, there is no doubt about it, but pubs, clubs and shops also need them. I know the police service nationally is short of money but it isn't up to football clubs to subsidise it.
"We want to pay a fair and appropriate amount."
Sheffield Wednesday declined to comment.