The PSNI has budgeted £17.5m to police Euro 2028 games if Casement Park is developed in time to host the competition.
It is still not known if the British government will stump up enough cash to redevelop the west Belfast venue, which has been derelict for more than a decade.
The proposed 34,500 capacity stadium is included in the joint Ireland/Britain bid to host Euro 2028 and the cost of its redevelopment has rocketed to more than £300m.
Earlier this week it was reported that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is to push for his government to meet a near £200 million funding shortfall for the stadium to be rebuilt in time.
![The Casement Park stadium is currently derelict](https://www.irishnews.com/resizer/v2/WY466WLNGZNSNPETGJDWDPHS2U.jpg?auth=e710826493b2c5103e2131c2dc3fe2c5abcd239589f1040fcb8fa61c6234d762&width=800&height=450)
At a meeting of the Policing Board this week, Chief Constable Jon Boutcher revealed that the PSNI identified gold and silver commands for the event in February 2022.
He also confirmed that his force has earmarked £17.5m to police the event.
A PSNI spokesman later said it would “avail of outside funding to cover £12.6m of that sum and be left paying £4.8m from the PSNI policing budget”.
“Of that £17.5m the non-chargeable costs will be £4.8m, the remainder will come from additional funding requests,” Mr Boutcher said.
“Of course, there will be implications on the mainstream budget of the organisation in policing such an event because of the numbers of people who will come here.”
Mr Boutcher said that the cost of policing Euro 2028, if it comes to pass, presents issues that other police forces in Ireland and Britain would not have to consider.
“And that represents us with particular challenges that wouldn’t be faced by An Garda Síochána, because they have had a 23 percent uplift in their budget, or by policing in England and Wales or Scotland, because the increases in resources they’ve had, and yet they feel under resourced,” he said.
“So, of course it presents some challenges, but they are challenges that we are working through to make sure that that we comply with the policing response you’d expect us to.”
Mr Boutcher added that he is “confident we will be able to provide a policing response to the Euros” adding that he wants the competition to be held in the North in four year’s time.