Premier League: In England, the supporters are again standing and that changes everything

It took almost twenty years to get there. Getting there was going back in time, in some ways, since following the Hillsborough tragedy and the recommendations of the Taylor report, it was banned from standing at Premier League and Championship matches since 1994. But it was also to show what the future could be, when supporters and clubs speak with one voice and act together.

Yes, almost twenty years since the two great English fan associations, the FSA and the NFFS, decided to merge and become the Football Supporters Federation, or FSF, today with more than 500,000 members. And this Sunday, what was one of the first goals of the new organization was achieved: not far from a third of Chelsea and Liverpool supporters who attended a 2-2 anthology between their two teams, could live it upright, without fear of a steward ordering them to sit down again, and without fear of being ejected from the arena in the event of a repeat offense.

Pass exam

On paper, it was still just a test. In fact, it was a passing exam, which was passed. 12,420 of the 41,837 places available at Stamford Bridge had been fitted with safety barriers comparable to those seen in Bundesliga stadiums. It was not a return to the “terraces” of yesteryear: in order to avoid dangerous crowd movements, all the spectators concerned were assigned numbered tickets which gave them access to a sort of virtual seat. , and did not move in ninety minutes. “I felt perfectly safe, commented Peter Trenter, chairman of the Chelsea Supporters Group. I’ve been a Chelsea subscriber for over forty years, and when I compare my experiences [dimanche] what I was going through in the 1970s and 1980s, it’s like everything I’ve been missing since has come back. “

The next day, it was Manchester United’s turn to transform part of Old Trafford into a laboratory for this experiment, with two thousand spectators present for the Wolves to come as guinea pigs. This time again, not the slightest incident was to be deplored. It is only a matter of time before safe standing becomes the norm in the Premier League and Championship stadiums; and judging by the favorable tone of comments from UK officials, it could be as early as the start of the 2022-23 season.

The fans are ready. The clubs are ready, their stadiums too. At Anfield, for example, a safe standing area – which will accommodate 8,800 spectators – is already in place; at Anfield, where the still painful memory of the 97 victims of Hillsborough had yet made many swear that never, ever, we would return to the standing stands of yesteryear. “I never believed in any form of safe standing, says Margaret Aspinall, whose son perished in Hillsborough, and who has been fighting since 1989 for justice. But my opinion has completely changed. We must allow those who want to be on their feet to be. We treat fans completely differently today. We supervise them. They are more careful. They learned their lesson, because of Hillsborough “.

Beyond what the exercise has of an exorcism for English football, it also shows that the fan power is not a vision of the spirit, an illusion maintained by some romantics who suffer to see their sport become the the prey of football business. Last April, we saw in their opposition to the Super League a last stand, a last outing which, even if it looked like a victory, only delayed the inevitable, also futile in the end. than the actions of the Luddits, those textile workers who, at the beginning of the 19th century, had fought in vain against the Industrial Revolution by smashing the machines of the manufacturers. This kind of tide cannot be stopped with pebble dikes.

It will be said that, in the case of safe standing, the supporters had led a campaign which the clubs had every reason to wish for success, in that it did not affect their income, and that it would help to create or recreate the type of “English atmosphere”, “vintage” one would say today, which constitutes such a good selling point for the Premier League on the foreign markets. No one is fooled by this. But the fact remains that it was the fans who were the initiators and the engines of this campaign, and that they ultimately won. Why could this type of synergy not serve other causes? Was it not the supporters too who fought to set the maximum price for tickets sold to traveling fans at £ 30?

Fan power is not an empty word

The irony is that this new manifestation of fan power that the introduction of safe standing constitutes coincides with the mass arrival of fan engagement platforms in English football and beyond, of which Socios.com is the most visible and the most aggressive. These spark who buys their tokens – using the cryptocurrency issued by these platforms, of course – with “super fan” status and promise to involve them in certain decisions of their clubs … but what decisions? Choose the music to celebrate their team’s goals. Vote on the colors and design of his third jersey. In other words, choose the sauce to be eaten by the monetizers of supporterism.

This could well be the future great battle of the English fans: to make their clubs understand that it is not by trying to empty their pockets for the benefit of traders in ‘non-fungible’ tokens and cryptocurrencies that they will make sure to their loyalty. After all, Norwich supporters had done a good job of getting their club to terminate a sponsorship deal with BK8, one of the most dubious online betting sites in Asia. Fan power is not an empty word: it is not only in stadiums that supporters can stand up.