Covering Fulham

This is a fantastic read.

Now, while I have covered two Commonwealth Games for Ugandan newspapers, this was my first EPL match. Within the EPL bureaucracy there is an implant called Dataco. In order to sit in the Press Box, I had to purchase a “Single Match License” from Dataco. And the license required me to take out £5m of public liability insurance. Now the whole of the Fulham forward line is worth not much more than £5m, so why on earth was that amount of public liability insurance required? Did Dataco fear that I would stab Bobby Zamora with my pen?

I telephoned around 50 insurance companies. Most of whom were happy to offer me one year’s worth of public liability insurance with a premium in the £250 – £300 (approx. Shs962,000 – Shs1,155,000) range. But one day’s cover, let alone one afternoon’s cover, was “a bridge too far” possibly even “a Stamford Bridge” too far. And it was surely a glaring Dataco weakness that they could offer no guidance on which insurance cover I should approach who might offer such specialist cover.

 I had almost given up hope when a friendly Paul of David J Miller Insurance Brokers offered me one day’s cover for £136. Although still expensive, I agreed to these terms as this might be the only opportunity I had in my life to sit in Craven Cottage’s Press Box.

The modern world, eh?  (White Noise  found the link.)