Doug Harper reports from the first Football Supporters' Federation (FSF) Conference which took place at Arsenal Stadium on 21st of June with over 140 delegates present.

I for one, am really optimistic about the FSF . At last, football fans' from all over the country will be able to use their sheer strength in numbers to voice dissatisfaction over how the game is run.

The typical conference malarkey aside (reading of minutes and reports etc) it was an interesting day.

The Supporters Of The Year award went to York City and the award was picked up by Steve Beck, who is now their chairman, but who a year ago was just a fan; and Football Writer of the year went to Martin Samuel (from the Times), especially for his writing on Wimbledon and Lee Bowyer at West Ham.

It was then time for the motions, of which there were 12. The stand out ones were;

Motion 2: The Fans Blueprint For Football
The Fans' blueprint was officially adopted at the conference. There are 22 points on the blueprint, which can be found in full on this website by clicking here.

Motion 3: Police Charges
To oppose the Government proposals that state that clubs will have to pay for policing outside and around the ground

Motion 5 Independent Regulation
Due to the lack of confidence in the authorities that run the game, who have failed to protect the interests of fans and players, there should be independent statutory regulation of the game.

Motion 6: Wimbledon
The name Wimbledon should be left to those committed to the name i.e. AFC Wimbledon.

These were all passed.The only motion that was not passed was Motion 12; that "Conference welcomes the London bid of the Olympic games."

There was also a debate on safe standing, which raised some interesting points. It was noted that some seating areas are dangerous: for example, some grounds have seating tacked onto the old terracing, which leads to cramped seating and constant falling over as you are forced to walk along narrow steps. Furthermore, delegates questioned why it was considered safe for rugby fans half a mile down the road from Northampton's ground to stand in a brand new Stand Development, a privilege denied to football fans.

There was plenty more on this issue and I intend to get a recording of this discussion and mention it at a later date.

Doug Harper

Previous articles about the Football Supporters Federation and related press releases can be found in the news archive