Retro fit stadiums an improvement for fans

I always thought the football authorities over-reacted after the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. It was a horrible accident and shouldn't have happened, but standing crowds weren't really the problem. Thus rebuilding stadiums to dispense with the terraces was both uneccessary and mistaken.

As this article notes in good detail, the debate about retro-fitting stadiums is now hotting up.

Having paid a small fortune to watch top level games in Europe, I know that match prices are out of reach to most and for those without access to fountains of cash - like me- going to a top level football game is more a rare treat than the weekly ritual it used to be. This hurts kids especially.

The irony of all-seater stadiums is of course that you spend half the game standing up anyway.

In the EPL such match prices, along with high TV fees which have put many free-to-air TV channels around the world - including here in Australia - out of reach, go to paying overly inflated wages for pampered, arrogant and sometimes misogynistic football players.

While retro-fitting stadiums to accomodate terraces is clearly expensive and difficult I am very much of the camp that says its something the game needs, particularly if it returns a sense of democracy to the world game. As we can see at grounds such as Borussia Dortmond's (see pic above), terraces are special and the game is, on many levels, lessened without them.

Photo credit: The Guardian

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