Security costs for Europa League final in Aviva top €7.1m

Seán McCárthaigh

Over €7.1 million in costs were incurred by An Garda Síochána in policing the Europa League final at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin in May – but without any financial contribution being made by UEFA.

The Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee, has confirmed that the governing body of European soccer will not be providing any funding for the security costs for the major sporting event which is UEFA’s second largest club competition.

In response to a parliamentary question from Fianna Fáil TD, Jim O’Callaghan, the minister said the total cost to date from policing the Europa League final is €7.12 million.

The match took place in the Aviva on May 22nd with Italian side Atalanta beating the German Bundesliga champions, Bayer Leverkusen, 3-0 with a hat-trick by Ademola Lookman.

A major policing plan involving an estimated 3,000 gardaí was put in place for the game which included thousands of supporters of both sides among the 47,000-plus attendance.

A large number of uniformed gardaí were deployed in Dublin for the event along with specialist units including the National Public Order Unit, Air Support Unit, Mounted Unit and Armed Support Unit.

A water cannon was also borrowed from the PSNI to be deployed in the event of any crowd trouble.

A breakdown of the costs showed that the bulk of the expenditure was accounted for by overtime at €4.86 million with €490,000 being attributed to the payment of unsocial allowances.

Travel and subsistence costs were €40,000 with another €1.17 million classified as “other expenses.”

The minister also confirmed that An Garda Síochána was not seeking to recoup any money for policing the event from UEFA.

“A letter of assurance was provided to UEFA that the State would cover costs incurred by An Garda Síochána for the Europa League final,” she added.

Under normal convention, the country’s main sporting bodies such as the FAI, IRFU and GAA make a financial contribution towards the cost of policing major sports events.

The costs are normally based on the number of garda personnel deployed and the operational plan for a particular event.