Football: Safe Standing Debate
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Matt Western
Main Page: Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington)Department Debates - View all Matt Western's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Football: Safe Standing
Matt Western Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
I genuinely appreciate your including me in today’s debate, Ms McDonagh. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) for bringing this timely debate to the House.
This is another good example of where we as legislators are not slightly but significantly behind public opinion. It is clear from the evidence that many football fans are pressing for a change to the situation in our stadiums. Something like 69% of football fans—96% of Arsenal fans according to one colleague—would prefer to have a safe standing area. Right across the country there is a real movement for safe standing, which we need to respond to.
I have been to many grounds, although not as many as some hon. Members in this debate. I have been to a great number of non-league clubs, such as Barnet, Brentford, Leamington football club obviously, and even Nuneaton Borough on three occasions. There is a terrific atmosphere on the terraces, as is to be expected at those sorts of grounds. I have been to the San Siro stadium, home of AC Milan, and to some of the other larger stadiums in Europe, but the most unsafe and threatened that I have ever felt was on steeply tiered seating areas such as at the Parc des Princes , watching Paris Saint-Germain. It can be so dangerous if there is a movement from behind in some of these seated areas. Some sort of tragedy could happen so easily. We need to be cognisant of changes in fan behaviour.
The all-seater stadium is a hangover from another era. Some of us remember those dark days in the 1980s. We are here, 27 years on. It is a significant length of time, and it is worth reflecting on how much the game has changed, particularly since 1990: the approach, the professionalism and the ownership of the game but also how fans engage with it.
Other hon. Members commented about the use of stadiums for all manner of different sports events and for rock concerts. I have been to the Ricoh arena recently to watch Coventry City and also to see the Rolling Stones. I felt no threat and no sense of risk in the crowd in the centre of the stadium. Let us look to Germany and abroad at what happens there. In the Bundesliga, 10 of 18 stadiums have safe standing areas. Borussia Dortmund and other clubs are so far ahead in club ownership, in terms of not just safe standing areas but the introduction of railed seats. There is so much we need to do to change our game in this country. As I said, 27 years is a very long time. It is long overdue that we change our approach to fans’ enjoyment of our beloved game. I very much support the petition.