COUNCILLORS have come under fire from their own officers for allegedly accepting free hospitality from Stoke City Football Club.

Officers claim nine council members accepted free tickets and refreshments while carrying out safety checks.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s sports ground certification panel supposed to visit stadiums and football pitches to check the sites comply with legal requirements.

But officers complain members received free tickets to watch the Stoke v Chelsea match on September 27 and also enjoyed free food, drinks and car parking.

They argue the checks could have been carried out by specially trained officers and the complimentary hospitality was never declared.

The panel comprises councillors Geoff Knight, Paul Billington, Jean Edwards, Adrian Knapper, Randolph Conteh, Terence Follows, Roger Ibbs, Michael Coleman and David Sutton.

In a report to the council’s licensing and consumer protection committee, officers called for action to be taken to prevent similar incidents and protect the council’s integrity.

The report said: “The panel has, over the last few years, developed a role which at best could be seen to be outside its own terms of reference, and at worst create a potential conflict with the management of the sports grounds which require licensing by the city council. Nothing in the panel’s terms of reference requires its attendance at grounds on match day.“

But Mr Billington, vice-chairman of the panel, said the panel had to carry out match-day checks to ensure that crowd control and other safety procedures are working properly.

“It is normal practice to make one scheduled visit and one unscheduled visit each year during a match day to observe the stewarding and other procedures during a game,” he said.

“Now that Stoke City has gone up to the Premier League, it is even more prudent for us to visit the club on match days to see the crowd control operations.

“If people were going to every Stoke game, then I think that would be ridiculous. But we are giving up our entire Saturday to do this, and the trade-off is getting to snatch about 10 or 15 minutes of the game between briefings and inspections.”

He added: “Sometimes we do get offered a plate of sandwiches, but that is usually when we have been there for six hours.”

Chris Harman, the interim chief executive and council manager, said: “The issue of the sports ground certification panel’s visits to football clubs will be considered at the licensing and consumer protection committee meeting on Friday and it would be inappropriate to comment further until then.”