REDaction campaign on safe standing

[goonerben.n5]

From their mailout.....

Today, REDaction launch a petition aimed to advance the campaign for safe standing in the Premier League. Specifically, we are petitioning Arsenal and Ivan Gazidis – we want them to start playing a proactive and leading role in moving things forward. We have all seen other clubs (e.g. Aston Villa, Sunderland and others) come out in support of the idea; and have all seen the surveys saying that fans are overwhelmingly in favour. But, we think the campaign is ‘stuck’ – at the point where lots of people say they are in favour, but that alone is not enough to change anything.

What the safe standing campaign needs now is a high profile leader, to start lobbying the Premier League, FA and Government. Both the law and the Premier League’s rules need changing before safe standing can happen, which will not be possible without some consistent and heavyweight lobbying. We think there is no club better placed to take the lead on this than Arsenal – and we want our club to step up and start pushing the campaign forward.

Why Arsenal? Well, a few reasons. As we all know, Arsenal have consistently been at the forefront of innovation in football. From shirt numbers to jumbotrons to floodlights to clocks in the stadium, we have led the way on so many occasions before. Arsenal are proud of this heritage of innovation – even creating straplines like ‘Forward’ and ‘Always Ahead Of The Game’. We think that leading a safe standing campaign is the obvious next thing – and as fans, we want to look back in 30 years and be able to proudly say ‘Arsenal pioneered that’.

But perhaps most importantly, we are proud that The Arsenal, our club, stand for doing what is right – and we firmly believe that safe standing is the right thing for football fans in England. It gives choice for those fans who want to stand, whilst respecting the choice of those who want to sit. And it treats fans like adults.

Finally, REDaction are leading this because we are convinced of the positive effects on atmosphere that safe standing would bring.

We have an online petition, here - http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/arse ... e-standing - and are aiming for thousands of Arsenal fans to sign up over the coming few weeks. That means, we want you to do two things:
• 1. Sign the petition – which asks Arsenal to start playing a leading role in advancing the campaign for safe standing.
• 2. Tell your friends, and ask them to sign it too.

[augie]

This I will absolutely support redaction in

[Dan_85]

Signed.

[clockender1]

signed.

I like their Logo too.

[mattyb]

Signed up to stand up. ..

COYG...!!!

[SteveO 35]

This I will absolutely support redaction in

Any excuse for you to secretly lend your support to getting Wenger a new deal and marching along with a 'sod off Jabba' banner

[jacko-arsnl2]

Its going to take alot more than a 10000 signed petition to get safe standing in place but its a good start

[augie]

This I will absolutely support redaction in

Any excuse for you to secretly lend your support to getting Wenger a new deal and marching along with a 'sod off Jabba' banner

How well you know me

[clockender1]

what a shame the JCL's never forsaw this and insisted we demolish Highbury because it was 'too small' and they didn't have season tickets.

[QuartzGooner]

Signed.
Hope that this can spread to all clubs including non-league ones, potentially there must be 30M people in the country who have been to a game at one point in their lives and have an opinion?

[gavbacon]

Signed! There really is no excuse not to support this....!

[DB10GOONER]

Signed. But it will never happen.

[gunnerdaz]

signed

[Dan_85]

Its going to take alot more than a 10000 signed petition to get safe standing in place but its a good start

I'd like to know what the next step is too. A strong petition is a good start, but where do we go from there? Is it thrown straight in the bin as soon as it's presented to the club? Too often AFC pay lip service to these kinda ideas but we never see much real action...

[goonerben.n5]

Its going to take alot more than a 10000 signed petition to get safe standing in place but its a good start

I'd like to know what the next step is too. A strong petition is a good start, but where do we go from there? Is it thrown straight in the bin as soon as it's presented to the club? Too often AFC pay lip service to these kinda ideas but we never see much real action...

Ok, let me try answering that - along with The Cook and a couple of others, I am one of the 5 or so people who run REDaction. So, with my tin hat on....

The short answer is that our next step will be to talk to the club - assuming we can get over 10,000 signatures in a relatively short space of time - ideally by early next week. We are already almost 1/4 of the way there, after less than 24 hours.

We think that Arsenal are not that far away from being persuaded to step up on this issue - IF we can clearly demonstrate that large numbers of Arsenal fans want them to do so. Arsenal want to carry on the tradition of leading the way in football ("always ahead of the game", etc), but need to be convinced that it is not just a few random blokes in the pub who are asking for this. So, the more signatures we can get, as quickly as possible, means the more evidence that thousands of Arsenal fans support this. (And the BSM survey results obviously do no harm here either).

We will initially start talking to AFC "behind closed doors" - as we think that is far more likely to get the result we want, than if (say) we tried to have the conversation via a public slanging match. That does remain an option, but we'd like not to have to use it.

(I need to get back to work now, but will try to check in later today and can answer any followup questions then).