Friday 8 June 2018 07:18, UK
Labour has come out in favour of safe-standing in the Premier League and Championship, increasing the pressure on the government to follow suit.
Clubs in English football's top two tiers have had to be all-seater by law ever since the 1989 Hillsborough disaster that left 96 Liverpool fans dead.
But large numbers of fans have continued to stand throughout games and calls for a scrapping of the all-seater requirement have grown in recent years, particularly after an independent review in 2012 confirmed that standing was not the cause of the Hillsborough tragedy.
Prior to that, Labour ministers and shadow ministers had backed the status quo, largely out of respect for the families of Hillsborough survivors on Merseyside, where it is the dominant political party.
Now, though, shadow sports minister Dr Rosena Allin-Khan has called for the law to be changed so that clubs and local experts can decide how best to allow fans to stand legally and safely.
The MP for Tooting said: "We want to give the power to fans, clubs and local safety authorities, to allow for a small area inside a stadium to be designated for safe-standing.
"Clubs, fans and local authorities know their stadium far better than anybody in Whitehall - the decision should rest with them."
For many senior figures in the game, the debate around safe-standing has been too focused on calls to introduce Bundesliga-style rail seats to English grounds and not enough about finding common-sense solutions on a case-by-case basis.
Rail seats, which have a waist-high barrier separating each row and a seat that can be flipped up and locked in place when used as a standing area, have been successfully trialled at Celtic and League One club Shrewsbury have just become the first English club to install them.
But many clubs believe the fact that thousands of fans are standing between rows of plastic seats every game without significant numbers of reported injuries suggests installing rail seats, or some other safe-standing infrastructure, is not necessary.
The clubs' safety officers are also fed up with trying to police the problems caused by those who want to stand and those who do not, while others in the game see standing areas as a means to improve the atmosphere at games.
After consulting with clubs, experts and fans groups, Dr Allin-Khan has reached the same point, with a suggested cap of 7,500 designated safe-standing spaces per stadium.
"This is about safety, the current system isn't working, people are standing in unsafe seated areas, and accidents can happen," she said.
"We would allow the installation of specialised rail seating where appropriate, or standing in current seated areas where it can be made safe to do so."
Earlier this week, the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport revealed it was ready to start a review of the existing policy but this came only two months after sports minister Tracey Crouch rejected an application from West Brom for a safe-standing trial next season and said that only a "vocal minority" wanted to change the current rules.
That prompted an angry response from fans and breathed life into an online petition on the government website for a debate on the matter.
Having taken three months to break four figures, 7,000 fans signed it in a matter of hours after the West Brom decision and a debate has now been announced for June 25.
