by Liam White, Respect the Fans campaign
The road to Wembley, the chance to walk down Wembley way, to look up at the archway, to sing with your family, friends and fellow fans to support your team in a final, that’s the pinnacle of every football fan’s dreams. Unfortunately that is a dream that doesn’t become reallity for many fans due to poor allocations. The Respect The Fans Campaign is callng for a fresh look at allocations at Wembley, whether play off, Carling Cup or FA Cup, a fresh look which aims to give the best allocation to reward the real football fans and the real football family.
The FA have called for respect in football, respect for referees from players, respect for competitions from managers, we’re asking that this respect is extended from the FA to the fans.
Each season upto 16 of the 92 league clubs will play a major game at Wembley, whether in the FA Cup, Carling Cup, Play Offs or Community Shield, and often these clubs and their fans will have some form of problems with poor allocations as many match going fans unfortunately miss out on being able to watch their team in what is most likely to be their biggest game of the season at our national stadium.
Due to the cost of Wembley, the corporate seats in Club Wembley are unfortunately needed, but what is unexplainable is upto 23000 tickets being given out to people who have little interest in the game and inevitably, via an extortionate price tag, many of these tickets go back into the hands of the fans of the clubs playing.
In England we are lucky to have two of the four best supported league in Europe, and this huge and passionate fanbase deserves the respect and deserves the best possible allocation.
The Respect Campaign is calling for a rethink from the FA about a fairer allocation, a look into who deserves to be counted as the football family, a greater protection of fans from touts, and a general show of more respect to the life blood of English football, the fans.
If you would like to support the campaign please sign the online petition part of our campaign http://www.petitiononline.com/facup71/petition.html or visit our website for more information on how to support and contact the campaign
