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Football Matches (Standing Spectators)

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point; he is absolutely right. As I would expect, and as always, Scotland leads the way. However, what he describes is not happening just in Scotland. There are owners of football clubs in the United Kingdom who support safe standing areas, but I will develop that point later. When fans asked for safe standing areas to be provided on grounds of choice and cost, they were originally told that standing was unsafe. When people pointed out that clubs in Germany and elsewhere on the continent had provided dedicated safe standing areas, and when people asked why, if standing was unsafe, the premiership had allowed one of its member teams, Fulham, to play for more than a year with open terracing behind one goal instead of closing that area of the ground, the argument changed. Fulham is an excellent example. Its situation is analogous to that of a hospital that is suddenly discovered to have a load of viruses in it, but the health authority, instead of closing it down, says, ““Well, we'll leave it for a year because it's going to be rebuilt in a year anyway.”” The premiership was saying, ““Standing is unsafe, but we will allow one of our member clubs to have standing until such time as it gets round to putting in seating.”” That is just one of the many contradictions and hypocrisies in this matter. Instead of it being said that standing was unsafe, the new line was peddled that it was outdated, not modern and not in keeping with the global image of the premiership, that there was no real demand for it, that it would be turning the clock back and that it would cost too much money to provide safe standing areas. When that argument was challenged, a new argument was added. It was then argued by the premiership and the FLA that if an element of safe standing was introduced into top grounds in England, no international or European games could take place in those grounds, because FIFA and UEFA regulations do not allow people to stand at international or European matches. However, it was pointed out that every ground in Germany has safe standing, that 24,000 people stand at each match in a single stand at Borussia Dortmund's ground, and that German stadiums are reconfigured quite simply for European and international matches.