Scotland Yard spent £6.7m on policing football matches last season, only recovering £361,000 from the clubs they were policing, according to latest reports.

The Standard claim that West Ham were the most expensive of the London clubs, costing more than £1m and only paying back 3% of this. Chelsea were the second-most expensive, but they paid back a significantly higher proportion, at over 20%.

With Tottenham third on the list, this leaves Arsenal as the least expensive of the top London clubs, although the Standard didn’t give exact figures for the Gunners.

It’s hardly surprising, given that the other London clubs are more well known for bad behaviour, and therefore likely require more policing. This is also good news for the future, as Labour London Assembly Member Andrew Dismore rallies for the clubs to pay out the full amounts.

If he succeeds, Arsenal will have the least to pay. Dismore claims that the Mayor and the Met have joined him in calling on the government to make the change but that the government hasn’t yet taken any action on it.

With the massive amount of money in football nowadays, especially with the billion pound TV deals coming into play in recent years, it really wouldn’t be too much to ask for the clubs to pay up their share of the total.

But it seems that no club wants to be the only one to do so while the others keep the money for themselves. The only way this will change is therefore if the clubs are forced into it.

Until then, like any other business, they will likely continue to do anything they can to minimise costs.