Football Supporters’ Federation backs West Ham’s safe standing plans

A football supporters’ group with 500,000 members has backed a proposal made by West Ham United chair David Gold to create safe standing zones within the club’s Olympic Stadium.

The Football Supporters’ Federation (FSF) has been calling for the introduction of safe standing for some time, but Gold’s comments have raised the prospect of its implementation being considered seriously by the football authorities.

An FSF spokesperson told Sports Management that the organisation “urges” Gold to “use his position to ensure safe standing become official policy at West Ham and raise the matter at future meetings of Premier League clubs”.

Gold told The Sun that he planning talks with the Premier League and Football Association (FA) to see if the club could implement the policy within the stadium it moved into eariler this summer.

According to Gold, safe standing could boost West Ham’s capacity to 66,000 – making it the largest club ground in London. The co-chair – who runs the club alongside David Sullivan – revealed that West Ham had been garnering advice from Celtic after the Scottish Premiership champions designated safe standing zones from the start of the 2016/17 season.

“It’s clear a significant proportion of West Ham fans want to have the choice between sitting and standing,” added the FSF spokesperson. “West Ham fans are not alone here – poll after poll shows overwhelming support for safe standing among all football fans.

“Safe standing would undoubtedly provide an answer to many of the problems with standing in seated areas at the London (Olympic) Stadium and across English football as a whole.”