Earlier this year, the government launched a trial for safe-standing at football grounds across the United Kingdom.
The Government’s latest update on safe standing in football stadiums is set to affect Arsenal, Chelsea, and Tottenham.
Over the last six months, trials for safe standing for football fans in stadiums across the country have taken place at five adopter grounds, including Chelsea, Tottenham, Manchester City, and Manchester United. Football clubs across the English football pyramid have conducted fan surveys to ascertain the general consensus of their supporters on whether safe standing areas should be reinstated in stadiums.
The FA Cup and League Cup finals at Wembley this season will feature safe standing sections, following the Government’s approval for top clubs to open standing areas on their grounds. The policy that will allow licensed standing areas in football stadiums to return appears to have been approved by the government.
The government has issued a statement announcing that licensed standing in football stadiums is now permitted. The trial was evaluated independently, and the final evaluation report was provided to the government, confirming its decision to change policy.
Instead of requiring Ministerial approval, the Sports Ground Safety Authority (SGSA) will now be able to decide whether to allow licensed standing areas. Arsenal has since issued a statement on their official club website outlining the steps they took to aid research into safe standing at football matches.
Arsenal’s statement read: “We have been in discussion with a Supporters’ Working Group on this subject since November last year and they were part of developing a survey we sent to ticket holders in May. We had a fantastic response to this survey with more than 16,000 supporters providing views.
“The reaction from our supporters reinforced some of the challenges introducing licensed standing presents at Emirates Stadium. Whilst the majority of our supporters (70%) are in favor of licensed standing being introduced, a minority (40%) actually want their seat to be in a licensed standing area.
“We understand these views and the broader debate around licensed standing across the game and are committed to exploring if and how it could be introduced at Emirates Stadium. However, we must be clear the introduction of licensed standing at Arsenal will not result in an increased capacity at Emirates Stadium as there must be one seat/space per standing person. As a club, we would also incur significant costs to implement licensed standing.”
The statement went on to discuss the measures that will be taken to hurdle challenges still facing implementing safe standing at the Emirates Stadium. “We are now working through the best way to resolve the operational challenges. These include the following:
- defining a process for re-locating Season Ticket holders who do not wish to be in a safe standing area
- segregating the stadium bowl, concourse, and turnstiles to avoid migration from non-standing areas to licensed standing areas, and determining resulting capacity loss and impact on supporters’ experience
- consulting our Safety Advisory Group about an application for licensed standing areas.”
Chelsea and Tottenham are yet to release statements regarding the latest update offered by the Government, but both clubs were involved during the trial phase of the policy.
